Software Development Engineer Interview Experience - Redmond, Washington
Process
I received an invitation from Microsoft for their interview event. First, I had an online technical screen, which I passed.
Next week, they flew me to Redmond for the on-site interview. Like the typical big company interviews, I had four interviews in a day, each lasting 45 minutes.
Each interviewer asked about my background for about 10 minutes and then moved on to a coding question. For those coding questions, I listed out the steps I wanted to implement before writing any code. For every step, I explained the time and space complexity and how I could improve them. After that, I wrote the first version of the code and discussed optimization with the interviewer.
All the interviewers were really nice and willing to help.
Questions
I signed an NDA. Be prepared on algorithms and data structures from online tools like LeetCode. Be familiar with easy and medium-level questions, but don't memorize them. This is really helpful for both online technical screens and on-site interviews, I mean it.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 214 interview experiences for the Microsoft Software Development Engineer role in Redmond, Washington.
Success Rate
Microsoft's interview process for their Software Development Engineer roles in Redmond, Washington is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Microsoft's Software Development Engineer interview process in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft Work Experiences
- 4.0A good place to work if you understand what you are getting intoSoftware Development Engineer • Current EmployeeRedmond, Washington, United StatesJune 22, 2009Pros: 1. Working on hard problems that impact people's lives. 2. Benefits, especially 100% medical coverage. 3. Great training program. 4. Management assigns a task and gets out of the way, allowing me to do it how I feel is best.Cons: 1. It is a big company, and many times politics is just as important, if not more so, than the validity of the project. 2. Hearing people talk about how much the products suck gets old. 3. A feeling that change happens too slowly to keep up with the market.
- 4.0Good Pay, Slow ImpactSoftware Development Engineer • Former EmployeeRedmond, Washington, United StatesJune 15, 2010Pros: Microsoft is a great deal, overall, for software engineers. The pay is quite decent, and the work/life balance is usually quite good. Sure, there are crunch times once in a while, but more or less, most of the year will be 40-50 hour weeks with decent perks.Cons: The main problem as a dev is that it can often be very hard to see what impact you are having on the organization. Products can take 6 months to 3 years to ship, and a lot of the time is spent fixing bugs or in meetings.
- 5.0Smart Team, Good BalanceSoftware Development Engineer • Current EmployeeRedmond, Washington, United StatesOctober 28, 2015Pros: - Very interesting and challenging tasks if you join the right team. - Smart colleagues. - Microsoft cares about its employees (health, dental, 401k, stocks). - Good work/life balance. - Hackathons.Cons: - No free food! It sucks. - You won't get the latest MacBook Pro and iPhone when you join. - To get promoted, you often should be a friend of your manager. - Comparatively low compensation. - Might get some routine, boring tasks if you are not in the right team, though you can switch them pretty easily.
Microsoft Interview Questions
