I first applied for the position while a recruiter was at my college for a job fair event. About a month later, I was contacted and scheduled an online phone interview. The phone interview was all business, with no personal questions. The interviewer asked me to start writing something that seemed somewhat simple, in whichever language I preferred. After about 45 minutes of coding and asking questions, he had me stop and asked a couple of questions about my thought process in coding the answer. I was contacted a few days later and asked if I could fly out for an interview. I accepted and went to their headquarters in Washington.

The day starts relatively early, around 9:30 AM, and goes "until you're finished." The basic process is they hand you the location of your first interview, either walk you there or provide a ride, and continue handing you off between Microsoft employees you will potentially be working with. Usually, each person asks you a couple of personal questions and at least one coding question. Some people may seem like they're ignoring you or acting strangely, but I believe that's all part of the interview process. Asking questions is a vital part of the process, as they want someone who is willing to understand something from top to bottom before attempting to write code for it.

As some other reviews have mentioned, towards the end of the day, you may or may not meet with your fifth interviewer if they happen to be busy. Whether or not this is truly an indicator of your progress, I'm unsure. I interviewed with four out of five people and did not receive the offer. Fortunately, I heard back the very next day, so there wasn't too much anticipation.

Most of the questions were difficult. Expect a lot of questions that really challenge your grasp on more advanced CS fundamentals.