Microsoft

Software Development Engineer Interview Experience - Fargo, North Dakota

January 1, 2012

Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

I was a college hire, which I think is the easiest way of getting hired at Microsoft.

I initially got interviewed at my university along with 200 other students. Then I got an on-site interview. The on-site interview was a series of 5 interviews:

4 technical interviews on Algorithms, Data Structures, and Object-Oriented Programming.
The last interview was with a manager and it was more behavioral and included a design question.

The interview is challenging, but if you prepare for algorithm and data structure questions, you can be successful.

Questions

I received a brain teaser question: How can I make the most number of triangles with 9 wooden sticks?

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 3 interview experiences for the Microsoft Software Development Engineer role in Fargo, North Dakota.

Success Rate

33%

Pass Rate

Microsoft's interview process for their Software Development Engineer roles in Fargo, North Dakota is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive100%

Neutral0%

Negative0%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Microsoft's Software Development Engineer interview process in Fargo, North Dakota.

Microsoft Work Experiences

Developers, developers, developers..

Software Development Engineer • Former Employee

Fargo, North Dakota, United States

Pros: Great benefits and pay. The people I worked with were smart and had a great work ethic. I also enjoyed a good work-life balance that was respected by my team.

Cons: The promotion cycle was a bit slow. They still review their employees with a bell curve, which leads to only a select few getting promotions and big bonuses. Even though many people deserved them, the stack ranking only lets a certain number of people get promotions each year. I saw many of my colleagues leave before their signing bonus was up because of this.

Developers, developers, developers..

Software Development Engineer • Former Employee

Fargo, North Dakota, United States

Pros: Great benefits and pay. The people I worked with were smart and had a great work ethic. I also enjoyed a good work-life balance that was respected by my team.

Cons: The promotion cycle was a bit slow. They still review their employees with a bell curve, which leads to only a select few getting promotions and big bonuses. Even though many people deserved them, the stack ranking only lets a certain number of people get promotions each year. I saw many of my colleagues leave before their signing bonus was up because of this.

Good work-life balance most of the time, but little opportunity to grow technical skills

Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

Fargo, North Dakota, United States

September 26, 2014

Pros: Most people work 8-5, so they understand life commitments. Business software isn't going away, which makes the job feel more stable (despite the recent layoffs). Great salary, especially considering the region (your income will likely be in the top 15% for the state of ND as a software engineer).

Cons: Dynamics seems to be having an engineering culture crisis, with lots of engineers stuck in their ways, cutting corners at the cost of long-term quality to meet deadlines. Most of what you'll end up doing here are CRUD operations. Don't expect multi-tenancy to be front-and-center in the cloud strategy. User experience gets uneven attention across products and even features within products.

Good work-life balance most of the time, but little opportunity to grow technical skills

Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

Fargo, North Dakota, United States

September 26, 2014

Pros: Most people work 8-5, so they understand life commitments. Business software isn't going away, which makes the job feel more stable (despite the recent layoffs). Great salary, especially considering the region (your income will likely be in the top 15% for the state of ND as a software engineer).

Cons: Dynamics seems to be having an engineering culture crisis, with lots of engineers stuck in their ways, cutting corners at the cost of long-term quality to meet deadlines. Most of what you'll end up doing here are CRUD operations. Don't expect multi-tenancy to be front-and-center in the cloud strategy. User experience gets uneven attention across products and even features within products.

Forget about your personal life. Work, work, work

Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

Fargo, North Dakota, United States

Pros: Good salary and benefits. Good experience.

Cons: You have to work day and night to get promoted. It all depends on luck; if you get lucky and end up under a good manager, your life will be wonderful. Even with a good manager, you have to keep improving, keep pushing, and work very hard to stay in the company. If for any reason you end up with bad reviews, you are screwed. It's very hard to move to another team. People sometimes go through bad times and end up not performing well, right? That will be forgotten in this company.

Forget about your personal life. Work, work, work

Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

Fargo, North Dakota, United States

Pros: Good salary and benefits. Good experience.

Cons: You have to work day and night to get promoted. It all depends on luck; if you get lucky and end up under a good manager, your life will be wonderful. Even with a good manager, you have to keep improving, keep pushing, and work very hard to stay in the company. If for any reason you end up with bad reviews, you are screwed. It's very hard to move to another team. People sometimes go through bad times and end up not performing well, right? That will be forgotten in this company.

Developers, developers, developers..

Software Development Engineer • Former Employee

Fargo, North Dakota, United States

Pros: Great benefits and pay. The people I worked with were smart and had a great work ethic. I also enjoyed a good work-life balance that was respected by my team.

Cons: The promotion cycle was a bit slow. They still review their employees with a bell curve, which leads to only a select few getting promotions and big bonuses. Even though many people deserved them, the stack ranking only lets a certain number of people get promotions each year. I saw many of my colleagues leave before their signing bonus was up because of this.

4.0
Developers, developers, developers..
Software Development Engineer • Former Employee
Fargo, North Dakota, United States
May 3, 2016
Pros: Great benefits and pay. The people I worked with were smart and had a great work ethic. I also enjoyed a good work-life balance that was respected by my team.
Cons: The promotion cycle was a bit slow. They still review their employees with a bell curve, which leads to only a select few getting promotions and big bonuses. Even though many people deserved them, the stack ranking only lets a certain number of people get promotions each year. I saw many of my colleagues leave before their signing bonus was up because of this.

Good work-life balance most of the time, but little opportunity to grow technical skills

Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

Fargo, North Dakota, United States

September 26, 2014

Pros: Most people work 8-5, so they understand life commitments. Business software isn't going away, which makes the job feel more stable (despite the recent layoffs). Great salary, especially considering the region (your income will likely be in the top 15% for the state of ND as a software engineer).

Cons: Dynamics seems to be having an engineering culture crisis, with lots of engineers stuck in their ways, cutting corners at the cost of long-term quality to meet deadlines. Most of what you'll end up doing here are CRUD operations. Don't expect multi-tenancy to be front-and-center in the cloud strategy. User experience gets uneven attention across products and even features within products.

3.0
Good work-life balance most of the time, but little opportunity to grow technical skills
Software Development Engineer • Current Employee
Fargo, North Dakota, United States
September 26, 2014
Pros: Most people work 8-5, so they understand life commitments. Business software isn't going away, which makes the job feel more stable (despite the recent layoffs). Great salary, especially considering the region (your income will likely be in the top 15% for the state of ND as a software engineer).
Cons: Dynamics seems to be having an engineering culture crisis, with lots of engineers stuck in their ways, cutting corners at the cost of long-term quality to meet deadlines. Most of what you'll end up doing here are CRUD operations. Don't expect multi-tenancy to be front-and-center in the cloud strategy. User experience gets uneven attention across products and even features within products.

Forget about your personal life. Work, work, work

Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

Fargo, North Dakota, United States

Pros: Good salary and benefits. Good experience.

Cons: You have to work day and night to get promoted. It all depends on luck; if you get lucky and end up under a good manager, your life will be wonderful. Even with a good manager, you have to keep improving, keep pushing, and work very hard to stay in the company. If for any reason you end up with bad reviews, you are screwed. It's very hard to move to another team. People sometimes go through bad times and end up not performing well, right? That will be forgotten in this company.

3.0
Forget about your personal life. Work, work, work
Software Development Engineer • Current Employee
Fargo, North Dakota, United States
April 23, 2014
Pros: Good salary and benefits. Good experience.
Cons: You have to work day and night to get promoted. It all depends on luck; if you get lucky and end up under a good manager, your life will be wonderful. Even with a good manager, you have to keep improving, keep pushing, and work very hard to stay in the company. If for any reason you end up with bad reviews, you are screwed. It's very hard to move to another team. People sometimes go through bad times and end up not performing well, right? That will be forgotten in this company.

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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