Microsoft

Site Reliability Engineer Interview Experience - Redmond, Washington

July 1, 2020

Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

I had five interviews: four technical and one cultural. Each interview was one hour long and conducted one after the other.

At least one of the questions was way over my head, but I felt no shame in asking questions and admitting what I didn’t know.

Prepare for the technical questions as you would prepare for a systems engineer interview.

All of the interviewers were men. They are the people I work with regularly today, as I have accepted the job.

Questions

How would you patch 100,000 servers?

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Microsoft Site Reliability Engineer role in Redmond, Washington.

Success Rate

100%

Pass Rate

Microsoft's interview process for their Site Reliability Engineer roles in Redmond, Washington is incredibly easy as the vast majority of engineers get an offer after going through it.

Experience Rating

Positive100%

Neutral0%

Negative0%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Microsoft's Site Reliability Engineer interview process in Redmond, Washington.

Microsoft Work Experiences

Cushy Job, Work-Life Balance

Site Reliability Engineer • Current Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Allows plenty of work-life balance. Salary and benefits are competitive. Health insurance is paid for, and they match 50% of your 401k contributions up to the IRS maximum.

Cons: This is a great, stable, well-paying job. It would be great if you were a dad. Unfortunately, probably 90% of the engineers they hire are dads. I don't often work with women or young people.

Cushy Job, Work-Life Balance

Site Reliability Engineer • Current Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Allows plenty of work-life balance. Salary and benefits are competitive. Health insurance is paid for, and they match 50% of your 401k contributions up to the IRS maximum.

Cons: This is a great, stable, well-paying job. It would be great if you were a dad. Unfortunately, probably 90% of the engineers they hire are dads. I don't often work with women or young people.

Good Balance, Deceptive Management

Site Reliability Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: - Good work/life balance. - Collaborative environment is less toxic than most.

Cons: Management tries to give the impression that hard work and innovation are rewarded, but executive decisions in the past few years have repealed benefits and made employees more expendable. Their mantra, "Empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more," is thrown out the window at the first sign of increased profit.

Good Balance, Deceptive Management

Site Reliability Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: - Good work/life balance. - Collaborative environment is less toxic than most.

Cons: Management tries to give the impression that hard work and innovation are rewarded, but executive decisions in the past few years have repealed benefits and made employees more expendable. Their mantra, "Empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more," is thrown out the window at the first sign of increased profit.

Layoffs are an issue

Site Reliability Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Excellent tertiary benefits such as access to a legal subscription plan, health allowance, family leave, discounted products, reduced cost pet insurance... the list goes on.

Cons: A recent shift in senior leadership strategy has resulted in some unfortunate layoff practices that may even skirt the line to violate workers' rights laws. Labeling mass layoffs as "performance-based" layoffs is not isolated to Microsoft, but it isn't something I expected from this company. It seems the way it was executed is simply to obfuscate the fact that they wanted to trim headcount in a way that they avoided paying any kind of severance and limited any potential for legal repercussions.

Layoffs are an issue

Site Reliability Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Excellent tertiary benefits such as access to a legal subscription plan, health allowance, family leave, discounted products, reduced cost pet insurance... the list goes on.

Cons: A recent shift in senior leadership strategy has resulted in some unfortunate layoff practices that may even skirt the line to violate workers' rights laws. Labeling mass layoffs as "performance-based" layoffs is not isolated to Microsoft, but it isn't something I expected from this company. It seems the way it was executed is simply to obfuscate the fact that they wanted to trim headcount in a way that they avoided paying any kind of severance and limited any potential for legal repercussions.

Cushy Job, Work-Life Balance

Site Reliability Engineer • Current Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Allows plenty of work-life balance. Salary and benefits are competitive. Health insurance is paid for, and they match 50% of your 401k contributions up to the IRS maximum.

Cons: This is a great, stable, well-paying job. It would be great if you were a dad. Unfortunately, probably 90% of the engineers they hire are dads. I don't often work with women or young people.

4.0
Cushy Job, Work-Life Balance
Site Reliability Engineer • Current Employee
Redmond, Washington, United States
May 10, 2025
Pros: Allows plenty of work-life balance. Salary and benefits are competitive. Health insurance is paid for, and they match 50% of your 401k contributions up to the IRS maximum.
Cons: This is a great, stable, well-paying job. It would be great if you were a dad. Unfortunately, probably 90% of the engineers they hire are dads. I don't often work with women or young people.

Good Balance, Deceptive Management

Site Reliability Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: - Good work/life balance. - Collaborative environment is less toxic than most.

Cons: Management tries to give the impression that hard work and innovation are rewarded, but executive decisions in the past few years have repealed benefits and made employees more expendable. Their mantra, "Empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more," is thrown out the window at the first sign of increased profit.

2.0
Good Balance, Deceptive Management
Site Reliability Engineer • Former Employee
Redmond, Washington, United States
April 24, 2025
Pros: - Good work/life balance. - Collaborative environment is less toxic than most.
Cons: Management tries to give the impression that hard work and innovation are rewarded, but executive decisions in the past few years have repealed benefits and made employees more expendable. Their mantra, "Empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more," is thrown out the window at the first sign of increased profit.

Layoffs are an issue

Site Reliability Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Excellent tertiary benefits such as access to a legal subscription plan, health allowance, family leave, discounted products, reduced cost pet insurance... the list goes on.

Cons: A recent shift in senior leadership strategy has resulted in some unfortunate layoff practices that may even skirt the line to violate workers' rights laws. Labeling mass layoffs as "performance-based" layoffs is not isolated to Microsoft, but it isn't something I expected from this company. It seems the way it was executed is simply to obfuscate the fact that they wanted to trim headcount in a way that they avoided paying any kind of severance and limited any potential for legal repercussions.

4.0
Layoffs are an issue
Site Reliability Engineer • Former Employee
Redmond, Washington, United States
March 10, 2025
Pros: Excellent tertiary benefits such as access to a legal subscription plan, health allowance, family leave, discounted products, reduced cost pet insurance... the list goes on.
Cons: A recent shift in senior leadership strategy has resulted in some unfortunate layoff practices that may even skirt the line to violate workers' rights laws. Labeling mass layoffs as "performance-based" layoffs is not isolated to Microsoft, but it isn't something I expected from this company. It seems the way it was executed is simply to obfuscate the fact that they wanted to trim headcount in a way that they avoided paying any kind of severance and limited any potential for legal repercussions.

Microsoft Interview Questions

Minimum Edge Reversals So Every Node Is Reachable

You're given a directed graph. Determine the minimum number of edges you need to reverse so that every node becomes reachable from node 0.

GraphsDynamic Programming

Two Sum

Find two numbers in a given array that add up to a specific target value, and return their indices. Essentially, you need to efficiently locate the pair that satisfies the sum requirement.

ArraysStringsTwo Pointers

Valid Word

Determine if a given word is considered valid based on a specific set of rules or constraints. The goal is to check if the input string adheres to the specified validation criteria.

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