Software Development Engineer Interview Experience
Process
The recruiter was aggressive. He painted pretty pictures of new features and cool new technologies I would be working on, but in reality, I did over a year of bug fixing on a mature technology nearing its maintenance stage.
I was interviewed by seven people overall, from 10 AM up to 6 PM, when I had the final conversation with the recruiter.
The interview questions were not too hard. I received some usual questions on linked lists and trees. Other questions were mostly about hardware and low-level drivers.
I wasn't asked any puzzles that Microsoft was once famous for, but I did get several interesting questions about emulating an old console game on modern hardware and about avoiding issues with problematic hardware.
Questions
Implement a solution for the bounded buffer problem. This problem involves a queue of work items and several producer/consumer threads.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 634 interview experiences for the Microsoft Software Development Engineer role in United States.
Success Rate
Microsoft's interview process for their Software Development Engineer roles in the United States is very selective, failing most engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Microsoft's Software Development Engineer interview process in United States.
Microsoft Work Experiences
- 4.0Software Development EngineerSoftware Development Engineer • Former EmployeeRedmond, Washington, United StatesMay 22, 2017Pros: There are so many talents. People learn from each other every day. It's the best place to learn Microsoft technologies and stacks like .NET and C#.Cons: Too much political things make work effectiveness really down. Cannot focus on work unless you have a good manager. Too many re-orgs.
- 4.0Working as an Intern at MicrosoftSoftware Development Engineer • Former EmployeeNovember 17, 2010Pros: Good environment to work. Nice to work on such large-scale projects. Smart people. Helpful people.Cons: Too much time is wasted in software development processes. Output is not immediately reflected in the product.
- 3.0There are some good organizations and some not-so-good organizationsSoftware Development Engineer • Former EmployeeRedmond, Washington, United StatesJanuary 17, 2017Pros: Most people are passionate about creating good products and good experiences for the customer. There are lots of different job opportunities. There are hundreds of teams at Microsoft. You can work on anything from games to mainstream products, to hardware, to research projects. I had jobs in many different groups over my years there because I decided I wanted to try a new product. Also, you can change disciplines. I've seen many people want to change disciplines, and they started getting experience in their current group and either took over the role in their current group or moved to a new group. There are lots of smart people there, and there are.Cons: Plans can change on an upper management whim. There's no good reason other than someone way up the food chain had a pet idea they wanted in the product. Upper management expects everyone under them to provide schedules and such, but they don't feel they should be held accountable to a schedule. We wait with no idea when the decisions that have a major impact on our product will be made. Schedules get made that everyone knows can't be met, but will only be reported as the official schedule until it's blown.
Microsoft Interview Questions
