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Product engineeringProduct company

Microsoft

Builds Windows, Microsoft 365, the Azure cloud platform, developer tools such as GitHub, and the Xbox gaming business.

Not known5 stage process documentedFounded 1975
Headquarters

Redmond, Washington, United States

Headcount

5,000 and up

5,000 or more people
Work model

Not known

Hiring

Not known

Not enough signal to say. Check the careers page directly.
Where to apply

Ask for a referral to Microsoft

A referral only means something if the person giving it can actually speak to your work. I will refer you where I know someone on the inside and your profile genuinely fits the role, and I will tell you plainly when I cannot. Either way you get an answer, and a straight one.

  • I read every request. A reply takes a few days, sometimes longer.
  • I will not refer someone for a role their profile does not fit. It wastes your time and costs me the contact.
  • Where I cannot refer you, I will say why, and point you at the way in that does work.
  • Nothing you send here is shared with anyone without you agreeing to it first.

If you found the opening, paste it. It tells me which team you mean.

A Drive, Dropbox or personal-site link is fine. Make sure it opens without a request for access, or I cannot read it.

At least a short paragraph. This is what I would be putting my name behind, so specifics beat adjectives.

Comma separated, up to six. Things you would be happy to be tested on.

Open internships

How they hire

Interview steps vary by role and team. Microsoft asks candidates to show their own skills without outside help, including AI, unless the interviewer explicitly allows it. Candidates report you can interview with several teams at once.

  1. 1

    Application review

    Official
    Application screen

    Some roles include a brief screening conversation before full interviews.

  2. 2

    Recruiter call

    Reported
    Recruiter screenRemote
  3. 3

    Technical screen or online coding test

    Reported
    Technical interviewRemote

    Either a live technical phone screen or an asynchronous Codility test.

  4. 4

    Interviews with the team

    Official +1
    Panel interview

    Microsoft describes two to four conversations of up to an hour each with potential teammates and cross-functional colleagues, by phone, Teams or in person. Engineers may be asked to write code. Candidates report two to three coding rounds, one system design and one behavioural round.

    CodingSystem designBehavioural
  5. 5
    Offer

What comes up

Recurring themes from candidate accounts, not a question bank. Nobody is served by leaked question lists, least of all you in the interview.

  • Growth mindset and collaboration

    Official

    Behavioural questions use the STAR model with an added reflection step, and look for learning, collaboration and customer empathy.

  • Clarify before you code

    Official

    Microsoft advises starting technical questions by asking clarifying questions and stating assumptions, and says it does not expect you to know everything.

  • Medium-level algorithm problems

    Reported

    Candidates report arrays, strings, linked lists, trees and graphs at roughly medium difficulty, with coding weighted most heavily.

Worth reading before you apply

From the Sefism resource library, matched to the rounds above.

Roadmap
Coding Interview Playbook

A structured learning path through coding interview preparation that brings together data structures and algorithms fundamentals, recursion and the pattern-based approach to coding questions in one order. It totals 77 chapters and 1,054 lessons, with quizzes, flashcards and a certificate. Use it when you have plenty of material but no clear plan for what to study first.

  • Job search
  • DSA
  • Career
Design Gurus · Interview Prep · 3 to 6 months
SubscriptionDetails
Roadmap
FAANG Coding Interview Roadmap

A bundle of five company-specific question courses covering the problems most often reported from Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Oracle coding rounds, each split into easy, medium and hard sets with worked solutions. It suits candidates who already know the core patterns and have a loop booked at one of these companies, and want to rehearse on the questions those interviewers are known to ask.

  • Job search
  • DSA
  • Career
Design Gurus · Interview Prep · 3 to 4 months · Advanced
SubscriptionDetails
Course
Grokking Tech Salary Negotiations

A practical course on negotiating compensation in tech, from preparing and building a strategy to specific tactics, the full package beyond base salary, handling multiple offers and asking for a raise. It has tailored sections for fresh graduates and experienced engineers. It suits anyone with an offer coming, and anyone who has ever accepted the first number out of discomfort.

  • Career
  • Job search
Design Gurus · Career Growth · 1 week
SubscriptionDetails
Tool
Resume Review

A paid, human review of your resume by experienced engineers and hiring managers from large technology companies, returned in three to five business days with line-by-line suggestions, proposed rewrites of bullet points and applicant tracking system advice. It suits engineers whose resume is already reasonably solid and who want detailed feedback from people who screen engineering resumes for a living before a job search.

  • Career
  • Job search
Design Gurus · Career Growth · Minutes
Platform
Hack The Box Academy

Hack The Box's structured course platform, built from short modules rather than the open ended machines the main HTB site is known for. Its Tier 0 fundamentals modules are effectively free, and job role paths such as SOC Analyst and Penetration Tester lead into HTB's own practical certifications.

  • CS fundamentals
  • Career
  • Job search
Hack The Box · Other · Self paced · Intermediate
Platform
LetsDefend

A blue team focused training platform built around a simulated Security Operations Centre, where you investigate real looking alerts, phishing emails, and malware samples the way a working SOC analyst would. It is one of the few platforms aimed specifically at defensive rather than offensive skills, with content mapped to MITRE ATT&CK.

  • CS fundamentals
  • Career
  • Job search
LetsDefend (part of Hack The Box) · Other · Self paced · Beginner
Browse the whole library

What it pays

Nothing collected for this company yet, and nothing worth guessing at. A made-up range is worse than no range because people negotiate against it.

Add to the Microsoft page

This library is only as good as what people who have been through it are willing to share. Most of these companies have no hiring process documented anywhere, and one account of what the rounds actually were is worth more than anything I can research from the outside.

What are you adding?

This decides how the claim is labelled on the page. Only someone representing the company can produce an “official” label, and I check that separately.

Year and month.

Comma separated topics, not the questions themselves.

Round by round is ideal: what each one was, how long, remote or in person, and what it covered.


Credit

Anonymous is the default. If you keep it anonymous, nothing identifying you reaches the page: it is published as a candidate account and your name stays with me. Never send anything covered by an NDA, and never send a take-home or a question paper.

Universities they recruit from

No sourced university links yet. A campus drive, a career fair appearance or an internship partnership is what puts a university here.

Add to the Microsoft page

This library is only as good as what people who have been through it are willing to share. Most of these companies have no hiring process documented anywhere, and one account of what the rounds actually were is worth more than anything I can research from the outside.

What are you adding?

This decides how the claim is labelled on the page. Only someone representing the company can produce an “official” label, and I check that separately.

Year and month.

Comma separated topics, not the questions themselves.

Round by round is ideal: what each one was, how long, remote or in person, and what it covered.


Credit

Anonymous is the default. If you keep it anonymous, nothing identifying you reaches the page: it is published as a candidate account and your name stays with me. Never send anything covered by an NDA, and never send a take-home or a question paper.

How to actually get seen

Prepare STAR stories that end with what you learned, since Microsoft adds reflection to the usual format. In coding rounds, state assumptions first and treat the interviewer as a teammate.

Sources

Whole profile last checked 2026-09-22.

Interviewed at Microsoft? Fill in what changed.

Processes change, rounds get added, tests get replaced. If what you went through was different from what is on this page, tell me and I will update it.

Want me to refer you here?

Send me the role, your CV and a few honest paragraphs on why you fit it. Where I know someone inside and your profile matches, I will make the introduction. Where I cannot, I will tell you why and point you at the route that does work. You get an answer either way.

Ask for a referral to Microsoft

A referral only means something if the person giving it can actually speak to your work. I will refer you where I know someone on the inside and your profile genuinely fits the role, and I will tell you plainly when I cannot. Either way you get an answer, and a straight one.

  • I read every request. A reply takes a few days, sometimes longer.
  • I will not refer someone for a role their profile does not fit. It wastes your time and costs me the contact.
  • Where I cannot refer you, I will say why, and point you at the way in that does work.
  • Nothing you send here is shared with anyone without you agreeing to it first.

If you found the opening, paste it. It tells me which team you mean.

A Drive, Dropbox or personal-site link is fine. Make sure it opens without a request for access, or I cannot read it.

At least a short paragraph. This is what I would be putting my name behind, so specifics beat adjectives.

Comma separated, up to six. Things you would be happy to be tested on.

Add to the Microsoft page

This library is only as good as what people who have been through it are willing to share. Most of these companies have no hiring process documented anywhere, and one account of what the rounds actually were is worth more than anything I can research from the outside.

What are you adding?

This decides how the claim is labelled on the page. Only someone representing the company can produce an “official” label, and I check that separately.

Year and month.

Comma separated topics, not the questions themselves.

Round by round is ideal: what each one was, how long, remote or in person, and what it covered.


Credit

Anonymous is the default. If you keep it anonymous, nothing identifying you reaches the page: it is published as a candidate account and your name stays with me. Never send anything covered by an NDA, and never send a take-home or a question paper.

Work with me

Stuck on something specific?

Writing only gets you so far. If you want an answer to your situation rather than the general case, book a session and we will work through it together. Sessions are free for approved Sefism members, and a few slots open each week.