Microsoft Interview Experiences & Questions
49 real Microsoft interviews shared by candidates: every round, the questions they were asked, how they answered, and whether they got the offer. Latest: Sep 2026.
What to expect at Microsoft
Based on 49 real interviews
By role
The Microsoft interview process
Most common round types: Behavioral (20), Technical (11), Coding (10), System Design (10), Product Design (5), Analytical (4).
Real Microsoft interview questions
- What product that you led are you most proud of and why?
- Implement a method to convert an integer to a string of bytes without using built-in helper functions.
- Why do you want to work at Microsoft?
- Given three C++ function headers, implement the underlying cache or buffer behavior they describe.
- How many servers needed by all the f500 companies
- General Questions about my knowledge in offensive security
- Open your calendar and walk me through your week, and tell me how that translates to being a product manager.
- How do you measure retention?
- Design a system for sending software updates to cars, like an over-the-air update system for an automotive company.
- Explain AI concepts to high schoolers.
- Burst Balloons
- Solve a graph problem around connected components using a union-set style approach and graph traversal.
- Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a colleague.
- Implement a simple text editor supporting insert, delete, and cursor movement.
- How will you use reddit to build B2B solutions?
- How would you scale application security initiatives without scaling the team?
- What LLMs or AI agents do you use, and why?
- How would you identify core drivers for retention?
- Why do you want to be a Product Manager?
- Given a binary tree, find the shortest path from the root to a leaf.
- Walk me through the technical parts of your resume and how you work with engineers.
- How do you stay up-to-date with the latest developments in AI?
- How will you measure success of Azure Cloud Solution
- Broad domain questions about security testing and assessments
- Walk me through the roles on your AI project team and how you'd handle training an LLM on data that includes usernames and emails.
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with someone and how you resolved it.
- Find the median from a data stream.
- What's your favorite Microsoft product, what don't you like about it, and what would you change about Microsoft more broadly?
- Design Ride Hailing system like Uber and specially focus on Matching Algorithms and Geo Partioning
- How would you design an AI evaluation system for resumes?
- Asked me about Threat Modelling.
- Tell me about yourself.
- Implement @ tagging like Teams/Slack.
- How do you work in teams, and what's your mindset as a product manager?
- Design an LLM-based Q&A System.
- Design a refrigerator.
- Tell me about your past projects.
- Calculator with brackets.
- Tell me about your current role.
- What methods or metrics do you use to evaluate how well your LLM performs?
Showing 40 of 131 questions. Open any experience for every question and how the candidate answered.
All 49 Microsoft interview experiences
“Very easy interview. quick 30 minutes personable. Gave lots of information about what to expect next steps. We took more like 25 minutes.”
“The screen was normal behavioral questions with the only technical one being how would I improve a product of my choosing.”
“The interviewer seemed to be uninterested. It felt like there was no way he would pass me. I should have asked the recruiter properly about what they are expecting.”
“My interview process started with a recruiter screen, which was very relaxed and conversational. We talked through my resume, previous experiences, and interest in the role, and the conversation…”
“Long process with low communication and clarity on hoew many rounds and whats the objective of each round.”
“still in progress but just leetcode prep. Studied some dsa and system design. Also dynamic programming helps.”
“The round was easy - I had to go over my current responsibilities and my work. I was asked a coding question as well so prepare DSA well”
“Overall positive experience – people very friendly and sharp. Mostly behavioral interviews, with deep dive on prior work. There was 1+ week of silence after final round. Think it was because the…”
“The process started with a recruiter reaching out on LinkedIn, followed by a 30-minute phone screen focused on my background, motivation, and logistics. It was conversational and low-pressure — the…”
“The engineer was good, worked with you to solve the problem. I confused between LRU and LFU which I think was the major problem.”
“Directly applied on their portal, Recruiter reached out to me directly on LinkedIn as well and I got interviewed by Microsoft or a Senior Software engineer role in March end and here's the experience”
“Directly applied on their portal, Recruiter reached out to me directly on LinkedIn as well and I got interviewed by Microsoft for a senior software engineer role in April.”
“The process was rigorous and well structured across screening and three rounds covering product thinking, AI experience, and technical depth with business strategy. Interviewers were highly…”
“In my binary tree round, I was not even leaning on BFS or DFS terminology, and they still liked my solution because I kept reasoning it out. That was the moment where Microsoft felt more about…”
“Recruiter didn't help much on the prepping part. It was rather called a screening with no focus areas. I prepared for product design and strategy questions, but that wasn't what they asked.”
“What went well: The live coding and system architecture rounds went smoothly. I was able to articulate my design choices clearly, especially around API design, database strategy, and maintaining…”
“It didn't go as expected. I did not have as many interviews as expected, and overall, the process wasn't great as the recruiter changed midway.”
“The process was quick with all interview rounds initially scheduled in the same week. The technical interviews were adapted to real world code implementations and didn't directly relate to Leetcode…”
“I was very unprepared for the system design part. Also the ML coding was difficult and I did not have enough time to complete.”
“Screen plus three loop rounds, all four back to back in one day. Coding problems were standard stuff, nothing exotic. What got me was that every single one had a follow-up that killed my first…”
“Though I hold good amount of working experience in building AI products from 0 to 1. However, I lack in explaining them in layman term.”
“The process is straight forward. Getting interviews as an external candidate is difficult. The interviewers are very friendly and accommodating.”
“It was an overall simple process. My first round was supposed to be a behavioral screening, however it was a full level case study. The final super day was product design, behavioral, and analytical…”
“assessment went well, two medium LC questions, loop had 3 rounds, two rounds were medium LC, one round was CS fundamentals.”
“It was really interesting to me since Microsoft PM interviews are known to test heavily (sometimes only) on behavioural as opposed to PM frameworks. However, my experience was mostly PM frameworks…”
“I did the first round interview, which was surprisingly not with a recruiter it was with a PM. He deep dived on my resume and asked detailed questions from each experience.”
“The so-called system design round totally threw me off. He was like, "let's code it out," and wanted me to build a file system with four use cases in 45 minutes, and then the recruiter just ghosted…”
“I thought I was walking into a normal product sense round, and instead she said, “Open your calendar and walk me through your week of college, then translate all of that to how you’d be a product…”
“The process was smooth, the interviewers were helpful. I messed implmenting LRU cache as I had never seen that question before.”
“It went well overall. They just asked alot of Tell me about questions and asked for follow ups. What was constantly asked was would I do something different if I could do that scenario over again.”
“The main technical and System design Interview was with the panel. It was a very long interview that took about 2 hours. All of the interviewers seemed very satisfied with my explanations and…”
“Process was very well made with good questions and open ended scenarios. Technical question was unexpected threat modelling.”
“The overall interview process was straightforward and well organized. Communication was clear, and the interviewers were professional and respectful throughout. I had a positive experience overall,…”
“It was a rigorous interview process but it was quick. everything was done in 3 weeks. Interviewers were great and they checked for depth in each and every interview.”
“One of the interviewers showed up 30 min late to a 45 min interview and we ended up finishing around the same time anyways.”
“The interview process was well structured and covered a good mix of DSA, ML theory, and ML system design. The problem-solving and technical discussions went well, and the questions were relevant to…”
“Straight forward, easy behavior, one system design. Overall similar to how Amazon interviews. HM was bit tough, I couldn't read if she is interested or if she is forced to interview me. But Skip,…”
“There were 2 rounds. 1 30 min interview and one the final interview with 4 different people. They were all very friendly”
“It was good! It was straight forward. Interviewers were very nice and the final round was 3 interviews”
“It was very straightforward and wasn’t too bad, although it depends on the interviewer. For the intern roles, they aren’t expecting as much from the candidate and want to hear your thinking out loud.”
“The overall interview process was well-structured and organized. The interviewers were professional, friendly, and gave me sufficient time to think through problems and discuss my approach. I…”
“Good process, hard Leetcode, I struggled a little, but managed to get through it. Graph questions. Debugging questions.”
“My onsite interview went very well was able to solve all 4 rounds questions. Communication was the key. Finally two teams were interested to hire me”
“It went pretty well. It was entry level. I think i should have asked more clarifying questions throughout”
“Recruiter reach out, HM screen, talked to HM's manager and HM's peers, total about 4 interviews. interview was really focusing on TPM fundamentals like timeline management and how I ran programs,…”
“Everything went well and my second interview of my final round was just a conversation. First interview was more technical just to see if I could talk about and execute technical concepts.”
“Process was fairly straight forward. Response times can vary so don't stress if you don't hear back in time.”
“Intro and Most critically challanging past project (around 10-15 minutes) Design a configuration service which is responsible for updating configurations existing on n number of microservices…”
“The process was quick with all interview rounds initially scheduled in the same week. The technical interviews were adapted to real world code implementations and didn't directly relate to Leetcode…”
Frequently asked questions
How many rounds are in the Microsoft interview?
Candidates report a typical 2 rounds, usually including a recruiter screen, online assessment, phone screen, technical round.
How hard is the Microsoft interview?
Candidates rate it 2.9/5 on average (medium), across 49 interviews.
How long does the Microsoft hiring process take?
About 3 weeks from first contact to decision, based on reported timelines.
What percentage of Microsoft candidates get an offer?
62% of candidates with a final result got an offer (25 of 40).
What does the Microsoft interview focus on?
The most common round types are Behavioral, Technical, Coding, System Design.