I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bellevue, WA) in Jun 2021
Interview
Initial Teams video pre-screen "whiteboarding" a theoretical design followed by a 6-hour interview circuit with 4 1-hour interview sessions taking place on a single day. Each interviewer decides whether you're writing code or whiteboarding the solution (sometimes they give you the flexibility to pick which). Two were clear with requirements and I thought very helpful with their hints, while the other two did not present in a clear way. As always, if I had seen the particular leetcode questions ahead of the interview I'd have done much better (partially because I wouldn't need to rely on the interviewers to clarify reqs, etc.). They were all what I would classify as "leetcode medium" questions.
I feel that doing these interviews with MSFT and AMZN and others is a decent way to prepare as I haven't really seen technical interviews that were harder than those from MSFT and AMZN, however you really have to grind for several months (after work) or a few weeks (not holding down a full time job) at least to clear enough of these potential leetcode problems to where you will have seen (ideally) all of them already when you get into the interview. That's always been my gripe with these intervews- anyone who passes them has probably completed the same basic problem on HackerRank and it's not "really" a test of coding ability so much as it's a test of memory.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Each interviewer is supposed to cover one or two of Microsoft's core values- they ask a question to give you the opportunity to describe something about your work history that demonstrates the core value/core values. In practice only around half asked these kinds of non-technical questions.
HR screening, one technical interview with the hiring manager then three interview loop which covered two system design and one dsa round.
System design was intensive and challenging.
It took them 5 weeks to come back with an offer. Background check was completed in a week, got joining date after 3 days.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a system for a startup company that let users post various types of content and get a unique url which can be shared with others to access the content
I applied online. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bengaluru) in Jun 2026
Interview
I got call via microsoft HR. She informed there will be 4 rounds of technical interviews all eliminator. Round 1 interview was a mid level graph question. The interviewer was actively involved, understood my logic, approach, challneged my assumeptions, did a dryrun at end, good experience. Round 2 inteviewer was extremely lazy and passive. It was a bad experience. He gave a problem statement of sliding window and disappeared. Wasn't intrested in hearing approach or even reading code. He came after 30 minutes , did a dry run and final output wasn't exactly correct. I identified a logical bug and started correcting it. He said there is no need , just finished the interview after that. The code i had written was optimal code but he didn't care to read that also. And there was still 20 minutes left. It gave me impression that interviewer in not at all interested in taking interview and they have been pushed my management. HR called next day to say i am not selected.