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Microsoft Software Engineer II Interview Experience

Microsoft · Mid level · Software Engineer

ResultWaiting
Timespan2 weeks
DifficultyMedium
Rounds3

Interview process

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 style problems.

The system design round was very open-ended with no definite question and highly ambiguous requirements.

Interview rounds · 3

  1. 1

    Recruiter screen

    BehavioralTechnical
    1. Q1. Tell me about yourself.
    2. Q2. What timeline do you have in the interview process?
  2. 2

    Technical round

    CodingCode Review
    1. Q1. Tell me about yourself.
    2. Q2. What data structure would you use for a write heavy system that does not need to look up data too much.
      Follow-up questions
      • What data structure would you use with additional requirements of finding the smallest and largest values of elements in the data so far?
    3. Q3. Adding to the above, what data structure would you use for the above system with added requirements of finding the smallest and largest values of elements in the data so far.
    4. Q4. How would you create a system to run A/B tests - to run a test on 10% of random users?
    5. Q5. If you're developing a file storage system - upload and get files APIs - how would you do the design?
    6. Q6. Code review with high focus on security bugs.
  3. 3

    Final / onsite round

    BehavioralCodingSystem Design
    1. Q1. Implement LRU Cache.
    2. Q2. Implement a method to crawl webpages given a utility function that reads HTTP/HTTPS web pages.
    3. Q3. Design a system that receives notifications from multiple producer services, processes them and then publishes notifications to downstream users.

Tips from the candidate

Would have helped to know more about the system design round and the general expectations of interviewer's for this round.

Company culture

Overall felt pretty good with the interview process. The team adapted the interview process as SDEs spend less time on writing code and use more AI tools in their workflows.

Details

CompanyMicrosoft
RoleSoftware Engineer
LevelMid level
LocationUnited States
InterviewedMar 2026
Questions asked11