I first submitted my resume on the Microsoft website. 2-3 weeks later I got an email from a MS recruiter asking me to fill out an application and then go on-line to take some skills test. I did all these things and a couple days later I got another email from the recruiter stating that they were going to setup a phone screen interview. After a few more email volleys, my phone screen interview was setup. The actual phone screen consisted of the following type of questions: (see questions below) Overall, I thought I aced this interview. Indeed I was right, because a week later, I was contacted by the Microsoft recruiter who said I would be flying out to Los Angeles to interview in person with a group working on Microsoft's newest SQL 2008R2 hardware solution. PS - Microsoft takes care of you when you travel. Geez! These guys paid for the flight, the rental car, and up to $75 bucks a day on incidentals. The hotel was 4.5 stars!! I got a room with king bed with a nice view. Awesome! The actual interview was interesting: I showed up in the lobby and was greeted by my first interviewer. He was very short with his speech to me. I felt a sense of arrogance about him and that he saw 500 of me a day (basically I was a nuisance that he had to deal with before he got to get back to his real work). We sat down in his office and he asked me a few questions about where I was from, how was the flight, and then he got up from his chair and erased some stuff on the whiteboard and proceeded to ask me the following 3 questions: (see brain teaser questions below) After answering the 3rd brain teaser question, this guy said that our time was up and so he took me back to the lobby where I and another person on his team went to lunch. At lunch the guy just let me ask questions about the job, the role I was interviewing for and the project that they were working on. After arriving back to the office from lunch, they sat me in a small conference room where I waited for 45 minutes before the next person to interview arrived. The next person asked me the following questions: 1) Tell me about yourself in 2 minutes. I want an elevator pitch version of you. 2) He then asked me to describe a project I had done while I worked at Cisco. He saw that on my resume, so he asked me to eleborate a bit on it. 3) Next, he gives me a pen and asks me to walk to the whiteboard. I thought I was going to write code, but instead he tells me this: Pretend I am your best friend. Pretend also that I have A LOT of money, and that at times I have so much of it, I don't know what to do with it. I make my money by coming up with different investment ideas and my latest idea is "parking structures." I have come up with this idea that parking structures in big cities aren't being run efficiently and that there was an opportunity to make some money in this market. I am asking you to take this idea of mine and come up with some ideas about how you could potentially research this hunch of mine, figure out what people really want when it comes to parking garages, what are some of the flaws in current parking structures that people don't like and design a parking structure that takes these flaws into consideration and eliminates them in its design. After drawing and writing on the board whilst sweating bullets for the next 30 minutes, he says that he is satisfied with my answer and asks me to ask him about any questions about the position. We spend about 5-10 minutes with me asking questions and him answering. He then says that he is really impressed with my answers and that most people to whom he gives this question never make it to where they are talking about design and the different approaches. Next, we shake hands and he walks out. About 5 minutes later, the frist guy I met, who asked all those brain teasers walks in. By this time I know that he is the main boss of this group that is working on this brand new Microsoft SQL server hardware solution that sells for no less than $3 million dollars a pop. He sits down in front of me in the conference room and says, "You aren't a good fit for this role. I don't want to waste any more time today so I'm going to escort you out." ...and that was it. Good luck! ;p