The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Jan 2009
Interview
I had four one on one interviews and a lunch interview. The first three interviews I was asked many different technical problems to code. The lunch interview and we went out to the restaurant and I was being judged on how well I carried myself. For the lunch interview and the final interview I was asked alot of questions about my background, what I want to do with my career, etc... They seemed focused on assessing whether I would be a culture fit.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
There are 4 people who want to cross a bridge. They each take 1, 2, 5 and 8 minutes. Only 2 people can cross at a time and they take as long as the slowest person. What is the fastest time you can get everyone across?
Then I was asked to write the mathematical equation to determine the trade-off point between each of the 2 approaches to solving this.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Berkeley, CA) in Feb 2011
Interview
It took me just one on-campus interview. I contacted them through a career fair. It was one software engineer from a network engineering team interviewing me for about 45 minutes. The first 10 minutes, he spent asking me questions on my previous work experience and projects. Then the next 10 minutes, he asked me an open-ended question on how to design a coke vending machine. During the last 10 to 15 minutes, he asked me technical questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Write a C++ code to reverse the order of words in a string, without using any additional buffer.