I applied through other source. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bengaluru) in Nov 2017
Interview
I was contacted over LinkedIn. After providing an updated resume I was asked to take an hour long test on HackerRank. After the test, I was invited to interview onsite on a Saturday. There seemed to be around 22 candidates present and about 6 interviewers present on the day. The first round was a technical one, it went well. After waiting for more than three hours after the first, I was told that the first round had been positive and I would have to come in again on a weekday for further rounds. Three days later, they called to schedule another technical interview two days later via skype. A day before the interview, I received a mail stating that they would not be proceeding with my candidacy. So basically the HR there doesn't care about any one else's time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A form of the knapsack problem, another question on binary trees.
I applied online. I interviewed at Microsoft in May 2026
Interview
1. Recruiter screen: recruiter was friendly but had their camera off. They asked me about my recent work experience, my strongest programming language, and salary expectations
2. Technical Screen: live HackerRank coding challenge with a team member of the team hiring for the role, over Microsoft Teams. The interviewer had their camera off but was easy to talk to. The coding challenge was a LeetCode-style challenge that required the backtracking algorithm. Interviewer spent extra time aftwards to take questions from me and share information about the team and employer.
3. 3x "Full Loop Interview Technical". The interviewers did not show up to these interviews. I emailed the recruiter who told me that interviewing for the role had been cancelled.
My overall impression of Microsoft based on their hiring practises is the company is dysfunctional, employees are disengaged, their hiring practises are disconnected from the actual job, and they don't care about candidate experience.
Moderate. Do leetcode tagged Microsoft questions. They generally ask from most recent Microsoft tagged questions. I applied without referral. Will have a technical screening with hiring manager. Then DSA and System design rounds.
Interview process:
Online assessment (hard level)
1-hour screening call
4 interviews in one day:
Medium-hard LeetCode (OOP-focused)
Medium-hard LeetCode DSA problem
Long system design interview (strong focus on relational database design)
Partner manager interview (AI-focused + behavioral)
The process was technically challenging and well-structured.
However, after the final interview, there was over one month of silence despite follow-up messages. Eventually, I received a generic rejection email stating:
"This decision does not reflect on your potential or the value of your experience."
I would have appreciated more timely communication and more specific feedback after such an extensive process.
