I applied online. I interviewed at Microsoft (Atlanta, GA) in Aug 2020
Interview
I interviewed during the pandemic for a Software Engineer position at the Atlanta office.
The process took 2-3 weeks.
The initial talk with the recruiter went well and was mostly focused on my background.
The next step was a phone screen with a Senior Engineer in Redmond. This interview was very different from what I was used to. Essentially I was asked to describe my solutions to 2 semi-easy coding questions.
After surviving that I had a virtual on-site interview with 5 different interviewers. The first 3 sub-interviews were coding based (with a few behavioral questions thrown in) and I did pretty well on 2 of them. The 4th interview was the typical developer behavioral interview. My 5th and final interview of that session was with the Hiring Manager, and this is probably where I ended up falling short. This particular manager was the head of a team that was particularly focused on customer satisfaction.
The rejection email said this:
"...you performed well like coding and problem solving, but didn’t meet expectations in areas like adaptability and customer focus which are critical competencies for our engineering teams to be successful"
Not entirely sure what that means but I guess that's why I'm not Microsoft material.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I signed an NDA before proceeding to the virtual on-site interview.
The process consisted 3 technical rounds after clearing the OA , consisted of medium to hard story based question. Not all round interviewer asked to run the code the last 1 just asked the approach
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Theay asked a graph (bfs) + bianry search question
Was a typical first round recruiter screen - pretty straightforward but didn't end up getting moved vforwards. Prompt, Professional and overall a good experience. They asked me about my background, explained the role and it was with the recruitment team.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe your background going into detial in each role
Expect a lengthy hiring process that can take at least two months from start to finish. In my experience, there was approximately one month of interviews followed by another month waiting for the final decision. Be prepared for a slow timeline, especially after completing all interview stages.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time where have above and beyond for a customer
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 66.4% 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%
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