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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I applied online. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Jan 2007
Interview
Was contacted by a recruiter who scheduled a time for me to have a phone screen with a dev manager. Interview with the dev manager for phone screen was relatively simple. I was asked simple algorithmic questions which were available on various sites containing microsoft interview questions. The dev manager informed me that the recruiter will get in contact with me to set up an on site interview. Recruiter takes care of setting up an interview loop and making sure that the candidate has everything taken care of while interviewing.
My on site interview consisted of 6 interviews mostly with members of the team that was interviewing me. Interviewers will mostly be Senior development leads and higher up's or in some cases SDE II's. Interview questions were mostly standard Microsoft interview questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I was asked to come up with edit distance algorithm and code it on white board. For someone who has not gone over the algorithm recently this will be a tricky problem to solve.
The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Nov 2009
Interview
Started off with an on-campus interview and was then offered to be flown out to Redmond for an on-site interview. The interview process was great, but I found the recruiting process to be extremely unprofessional. I was pressured a lot and given unreasonable deadlines. I've heard that the recruiters are contracted employees (that don't actually work for Microsoft) and who get a commission if you take the job, which may explain why they pushed so hard. I found it uncomfortable.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you find the intersection of two arrays of integers?
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft in Sep 2008
Interview
Some general and technical questions like:
- describing topics of my resume
- why should I be hired by MS
- what's the difference between inner join and left outter join
- implement a function that returns the N-iest Fibonacci number
- implement a function that reverts a string
- implement the previous function to make changes in local
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
- what's the difference between inner join and left outter join