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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Had a campus interview at my university. Nothing unexpected. Was asked to count a number of words in a string, and ways to optimize the algorithm (parallelizing)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
asked to test an alarm clock. ask about improvements i'd add to it
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft in Nov 2012
Interview
The interview was also held for SDET position... It was a phone interview and lasted for about 52 mins...
First it was all about me and my projects and skills and previous works of my own...
Which language are you interested in and what was the most difficult part of your projects..
I was going on explaining a lot about c# and c++ and he asked differences and told him...
That was the first technical question .. there on he asked only behavioural questions
1.9 marbles question...
2.test a calculator
3.how do you explain internet to a 5 year old
I fared well on all of these...
Later asked location preferences and all that sort of q's
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
There is no difficult part at all.. only thing I fumbled on was during explaining him my project experiences... and the question that what field were you interested in(particularly in MSFT)?
I said windows mobile and OS's..
I applied through college or university. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Microsoft (Sydney) in Aug 2012
Interview
I got the interview through university career events applications. I guess you have a better chance than applying online if you apply through your university. The interview had 2 rounds; the first round was mostly about my background and what I like and dont like about microsoft and how can I improve it. In addition to some technical questions and some design questions like design a clock for blind users.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions about hardware, memory allocations, pointers!