Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Microsoft with 3.2 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 64% positive. To compare, the company-average is 66.3% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 29 days to get hired, when considering 1,705 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Microsoft overall takes an average of 30 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Microsoft as a Software Engineer according to 1,705 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 27%
Phone interview: 23%
Skills test: 15%
Presentation: 11%
Background check: 6%
Personality test: 5%
Group panel interview: 5%
IQ intelligence test: 4%
Drug test: 3%
Other: 2%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Microsoft in Oct 2019
Interview
Worst experience I've ever had. Did an initial on-campus interview with Microsoft. They asked a stupidly easy leetcode question where everybody who have studied beforehand would be able to get it in less than 5 minutes. I waited for two months but they never got back to me to schedule my on-site interview. I followed up with the recruiter multiple times and initially she said you will hear back in 1-3 weeks then it's 3-6 weeks. Honestly a waste of time. They treated you like second class citizen when you don't have a pending offer.
Advice to their recruiting team: if you want to use on-campus interview as a way to weed out people, maybe you should ask some slightly harder questions. Otherwise you can just fly everyone onsite and skip the on-campus interview. And you should also keep in mind that most people don't just apply to microsoft and a lot of companies offers expire in 1-2 weeks, which is not enough time to do an onsite and get the final decision.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Mine was the 2 sum question on LeetCode. One of my friend got asked the valid palindrome question (check if a string is a palindrome)
I applied online. I interviewed at Microsoft (Melbourne)
Interview
After submitting an online application, I received a HackerRank assessment after passing the resume screening stage, then I was rejected after completing the assessment and did not proceed to further interview rounds.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The assessment consisted of two LeetCode-medium-level coding questions to be completed within 75 minutes.
45 mins technical interview with a member of their San fran team. Very relaxed and informal but questions were focused and lots of follow ups. Easy to schedule as was over video conferencing platform
Straightforward technical loop overall, with strong interviewers at every stage. I genuinely enjoyed the in-depth conversations around technical challenges and algorithmic problem-solving — the entire process felt well-structured and genuinely engaging.