The process was very scatterbrained and poorly run. The group didn't have a clear leader, and their criteria for what they were looking for in an engineer shifted with every interviewer.
The interview included a really awkward development test, sat in front of Visual Studio, coding an example solution. However, there were a variety of setup problems, as well as an incomplete specification of the problem, that made the process slow and overcomplicated.
The racehorse problem:
Given 25 horses and no stopwatch, and you can only race 5 horses at the same time, how few races does it take to find the fastest horse?
The following metrics were computed from 24 interview experiences for the Microsoft Senior Software Engineer role in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft's interview process for their Senior Software Engineer roles in Redmond, Washington is very selective, failing most engineers who go through it.
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Microsoft's Senior Software Engineer interview process in Redmond, Washington.