Software Development Engineer Interview Experience - Redmond, Washington
Process
I had an upcoming deadline, so I skipped the phone screen and went directly to the onsite interview. The recruiter quickly scheduled it.
During the onsite, I had five technical interviews. Some of these included behavioral questions to assess my ability to be a team player and handle tough situations professionally.
I received the offer after three business days, which was a very fast turnaround. The interview experience was also awesome; I chatted with the interviewers as if they were colleagues.
Questions
NDA. Basic algorithm/data structure questions and two system design questions.
The coding questions were not too difficult; they expected you to code up the optimal solution flawlessly and analyze its runtime/memory correctly.
The system design questions were just meant to see if you could tackle intentionally ambiguous problems by asking the right questions.
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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
- 3.0Smart People, Slow ProcessSoftware Development Engineer • Current EmployeeRedmond, Washington, United StatesSeptember 29, 2010Pros: Large impact. Smart people. Great decor.Cons: Slow. Lots of processes. It's in Redmond where it's not sunny.
- 5.0Great place to work. Watch out for the caveats of being at a big companySoftware Development Engineer • Current EmployeeRedmond, Washington, United StatesNovember 6, 2008Pros: Most of the people here are really smart. There's so much going on at the company and they've been at this forever - Microsoft knows how to ship a product. The volume of information (and professional development resources) available to employees is enormous. If you want to work on products the entire world uses, look no further. Compensation and benefits are both very good. There's a lot of emphasis put on individual career development. In terms of social responsibility, they're very generous and proactive re: corporate giving and volunteer work.Cons: There can be a lot of red tape. Sometimes you can get the feeling that you're spending more time talking about what is going to be done than actually doing it. This is both good and bad: your plan is always rock solid, but because of all the time spent planning, you have less time for the work itself. Depending on the team, there can be pressure to "just get the job done," whether or not that means working reasonable hours. In my experience, this is cyclical. There can also be politics to deal with, since, after all, this is a big company. There can be reluctance to embrace non-Microsoft technologies, particularly open-source ones. Some of this is valid from a legal perspective (Microsoft is a big target and can get away with a lot less than a smaller company which is off the radar), but regardless of the actual reasons, this can make it take longer to get the job done.
- 5.0Great place to work!Software Development Engineer • Current EmployeeRedmond, Washington, United StatesJune 8, 2016Pros: You get to work with some of the brightest minds in the world.Cons: Since the company is huge and everyone is busy, it can be challenging for a new hire to ramp up, although there are a lot of self-help tools.
Microsoft Interview Questions
