Microsoft

Software Development Engineer Interview Experience - Redmond, Washington

October 1, 2018

Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

The interview process involved one phone screen and four tech interviews conducted over Skype.

The overall process was smooth and very positive. Communication from the company was quick and effective.

I received details about an offer within a day of completing the interviews.

Questions

I was asked a couple of coding questions, a couple of design problems on concurrency and scalability. Most of my interviews, however, were discussions about past projects and experiences.

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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

45%

Pass 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

Positive75%

Neutral17%

Negative8%

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

Microsoft Work Experiences

Huge variability in work

Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Lots of friendly, helpful co-workers. Microsoft is such a large company that there are opportunities to work on a huge variety of projects, languages, and environments. Wonderful work-life balance. Everyone is very understanding if you have to take a few hours off here and there for family or other non-work reasons.

Cons: Management often seemed distant; you would meet with your manager for 30 minutes each week, then not see them again until the next week. A lot of time is eaten up with email, meetings, work tracking, etc., which can leave little time for dev work. Due to the company's massive size, you can end up assigned to a dead-end project, a poor manager, etc., and forgotten about.

Huge variability in work

Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Lots of friendly, helpful co-workers. Microsoft is such a large company that there are opportunities to work on a huge variety of projects, languages, and environments. Wonderful work-life balance. Everyone is very understanding if you have to take a few hours off here and there for family or other non-work reasons.

Cons: Management often seemed distant; you would meet with your manager for 30 minutes each week, then not see them again until the next week. A lot of time is eaten up with email, meetings, work tracking, etc., which can leave little time for dev work. Due to the company's massive size, you can end up assigned to a dead-end project, a poor manager, etc., and forgotten about.

Nice company with a cool culture

Software Development Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: No license issue, good culture, nice work environment.

Cons: Too much going on, no focus.

Nice company with a cool culture

Software Development Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: No license issue, good culture, nice work environment.

Cons: Too much going on, no focus.

It was okay

Software Development Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Good benefits. Lots of options.

Cons: Big management stack. Can have office politics.

Software Development Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Good benefits. Lots of options.

Cons: Big management stack. Can have office politics.

Huge variability in work

Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Lots of friendly, helpful co-workers. Microsoft is such a large company that there are opportunities to work on a huge variety of projects, languages, and environments. Wonderful work-life balance. Everyone is very understanding if you have to take a few hours off here and there for family or other non-work reasons.

Cons: Management often seemed distant; you would meet with your manager for 30 minutes each week, then not see them again until the next week. A lot of time is eaten up with email, meetings, work tracking, etc., which can leave little time for dev work. Due to the company's massive size, you can end up assigned to a dead-end project, a poor manager, etc., and forgotten about.

3.0
Huge variability in work
Software Development Engineer • Current Employee
Redmond, Washington, United States
August 2, 2015
Pros: Lots of friendly, helpful co-workers. Microsoft is such a large company that there are opportunities to work on a huge variety of projects, languages, and environments. Wonderful work-life balance. Everyone is very understanding if you have to take a few hours off here and there for family or other non-work reasons.
Cons: Management often seemed distant; you would meet with your manager for 30 minutes each week, then not see them again until the next week. A lot of time is eaten up with email, meetings, work tracking, etc., which can leave little time for dev work. Due to the company's massive size, you can end up assigned to a dead-end project, a poor manager, etc., and forgotten about.

Nice company with a cool culture

Software Development Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: No license issue, good culture, nice work environment.

Cons: Too much going on, no focus.

4.0
Nice company with a cool culture
Software Development Engineer • Former Employee
Redmond, Washington, United States
April 18, 2015
Pros: No license issue, good culture, nice work environment.
Cons: Too much going on, no focus.

It was okay

Software Development Engineer • Former Employee

Redmond, Washington, United States

Pros: Good benefits. Lots of options.

Cons: Big management stack. Can have office politics.

3.0
It was okay
Software Development Engineer • Former Employee
Redmond, Washington, United States
May 20, 2023
Pros: Good benefits. Lots of options.
Cons: Big management stack. Can have office politics.

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.

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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