Skip to contentSkip to footer
  • Community
  • Jobs
  • Companies
  • Salaries
  • For employers
      Notifications

      Loading...

      Elevate your career

      Discover your earning potential, land dream jobs, and share work-life insights anonymously.

      employer cover photo
      employer logo
      employer logo

      Microsoft

      Engaged employer

      About
      Reviews
      Pay and benefits
      Jobs
      Interviews
      Interviews
      Related searches: Microsoft reviews | Microsoft jobs | Microsoft salaries | Microsoft benefits
      Microsoft interviewsMicrosoft Software Development Engineer interviewsMicrosoft interview


      Glassdoor

      • About / Press
      • Awards
      • Blog
      • Research
      • Contact Us
      • Guides

      Employers

      • Free Employer Account
      • Employer Centre
      • Employers Blog

      Information

      • Help
      • Guidelines
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy and Ad Choices
      • Do Not Sell Or Share My Information
      • Cookie Consent Tool
      • Security

      Work With Us

      • Advertisers
      • Careers
      Download the App

      • Browse by:
      • Companies
      • Jobs
      • Locations
      • Communities
      • Recent posts

      Copyright © 2008-2026. Glassdoor LLC. "Glassdoor," "Worklife Pro," "Bowls" and logo are proprietary trademarks of Glassdoor LLC.

      Company Bowl sample

      Want the inside scoop on your own company?

      Check out your Company Bowl for anonymous work chats.

      Bowls

      Get actionable career advice tailored to you by joining more bowls.

      Followed companies

      Stay ahead in opportunities and insider tips by following your dream companies.

      Job searches

      Get personalised job recommendations and updates by starting your searches.

      Software Development Engineer Interview

      5 Jun 2010
      Anonymous interview candidate
      Dublin, Dublin
      Declined offer
      Neutral experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied through university. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft (Dublin, Dublin) in Apr 2010

      Interview

      Had one short interview on campus, then after 3 months got a phone call for the interview on phone plus had to fill out a pretty boring/long form asking me about my interesting projects etc. First interview was easy; mostly HR stuff, then they sent me a online test, two questions first was to implement FIFO using LIFO second was on the lines of selecting random nodes from a tree. 2nd question was pretty tough. But I did both of them in 1 hour, compiled and send them the working code. Then they called up for a technical interview asking following questions -How would you test an application that takes 3 inputs and draws a triangle? (black box testing) -Write a data structure class that works as both a Stack and a Queue. Write test cases for them. -Write code to reverse a linked list. Write test cases. -Write code to merge-sort 2 linked lists (no duplicates). Write test cases. -Write code to delete all nodes in a linked list that contain integer values that are odd numbers. Write test cases. -Write code to delete alternate nodes in a doubly linked list. Write test cases. - Given "ABC/EF" where do you place values G, H, and I. (pattern matching puzzle). -How will you write a function to merge two sorted arrays assuming one of them have enough space to hold all the members. After this they called me up to MS’s EU headquarters in Ireland, pretty basic interview, back to back 5 interviews, all pretty easy, asking questions about C++ internals, pointers and few simple algorithms, search a list, sort an array, overloading etc. After this (i.e. after about 10 interviews in total and 1 coding test) they precede with an offer the next day, which was sadly only €30K amazingly a very low offer from such a big company. I discussed with the Microsoft’s HR abut the growth prospects what will be my pay after 1 year and then 2 year, turned out its pretty basic, 36-37K after first year and 40-42K after 2nd. I also applied at Accenture; they offered 42K + benefits straight away. So I can’t believe it, but I had to ditch Microsoft and join Accenture. In the end I felt that Microsoft wasted so much of my time, not worth apply a job here. My advice is if you are smart and can make it, join Google. Otherwise go for the money, there is no prestige in working for MS anymore.

      Interview questions [2]

      Question 1

      implement FIFO using LIFO
      Answer question

      Question 2

      LIFO second was on the lines of selecting random nodes from a binary search tree
      Answer question
      5

      Other Software Development Engineer interview reviews for Microsoft

      Software Development Engineer I Interview

      22 Jul 2025
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Microsoft

      Interview

      It started with a 90-minute online assessment, followed by a technical phone screen with one engineer. The OA covered two medium-to-hard algorithm problems. For coding practice, I mainly rely on "LeetCode" to cover different topics. For company-specific interview preparation, I use "Hack2Hire", "LeetCode Discuss", and "1Point3Acres" to find any recent original questions. All of them are helpful platforms. The phone screen included one coding problem and some discussion around edge cases and time complexity.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Given a list of meeting time intervals, determine if a person could attend all meetings.
      1 Answer

      Software Development Engineer Interview

      20 Jun 2025
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Microsoft in Dec 2024

      Interview

      I was invited to a technical interview with Microsoft. The interviewer started with a general question: “What happens when you type google.com into your browser?” They asked a few follow-up questions related to that. After that, they gave me a LeetCode algorithmic question, which was at a hard level. The problem was “Integer to English Words.”

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      1. What happens when you type google.com into your browser? 2. “Integer to English Words” – LeetCode algorithmic question
      Answer question

      Software Development Engineer Interview

      28 Feb 2024
      Anonymous employee
      Shanghai, Shanghai
      Accepted offer
      Positive experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Microsoft (Shanghai, Shanghai)

      Interview

      Three tech interviews + one hiring manager VO, most of questions are medium to hard leetcode questions. Ask some questions about techniques you written on the resume. But I think they care more about the match of the research and the job.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Tell me about the recommendation System you made for the work.
      Answer question
      1