Microsoft Software Development Engineer interview questions
based on 1.2K ratings - Updated Jul 22, 2025
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Software Development Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Microsoft with 4 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 100% positive. To compare, the company-average is 71.3% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Development Engineer roles take an average of 1 day to get hired, when considering 1 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Microsoft overall takes an average of 46 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Microsoft as a Software Development Engineer according to 1 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 100%
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Contacted by a recruiter. Quick phone screen then on-site interviews with 4+ people. Overall an efficient and good experience. Technical questions didn't really have much of a basis for the actual role though.
I applied through college or university. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Sep 2014
Interview
I got an on campus interview and several weeks later, I got a on-site opportunity.
On campus: resume related questions, and one coding test (string related)
On-site interview: 4 rounds
resume related questions + coding
coding question 1: anagram related
coding question 2: OS related
coding question 3: BST related
coding question 4: OS related
2 days after on-site, I got an offer.
I applied through college or university. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Nov 2014
Interview
An initial screening interview on campus consisting of a brief (~5 minute) behavioral interview followed by a coding question on string manipulation/character arrays
after the screening interview I had five interviews on the Microsoft campus. All of these were brief (~5 minute behavioral) followed by an easy question and a harder question. Some data structure related questions, and a lot of algorithm design with identification of spacial and time complexity and usually ending with trying to reduce the complexity.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
find out whether a string is an anagram of another string