I applied through university. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Microsoft (Seattle, WA) in Oct 2020
Interview
(August 2020) Submitted application online without referral.
(September 2020) Normally on-campus, but due to Covid was virtual. One phone screen with mostly behavioral questions and a couple conceptual technical questions (about standard CS concepts). Really practice talking about your projects and the teamwork within your projects. Within the next week (usually takes longer but only took me a week) they contacted me scheduling a virtual on-site.
(October 2020) Interviewed at the very start of October with the (seemingly) randomly decided team in Azure. 4 interviews: 1. A Software Manager asking about projects and technical decisions within projects. Technical question was variation of common BST-related problem asked by Microsoft. 2. SWE asking about projects and teamwork. Technical question was Meeting Rooms 2. 3. Software Manager asking system design question. Fairly lax since New Grad, so just talk about things you would consider when building the system (how to make things scalable, what databases to have, important features). Question was about cloud services product design. 4. Normally called the AA meeting, only for people who did well, but for virtual interviews they seem to give this to everyone no matter what. With Senior manager who likely makes the ultimate decision based on feedback prior. Asked about your interests and past experience. Checks if you are match for the team. Technical question was along the lines of longest palindrome substring.
Received offer several weeks later due to delays (late October). Was great experience. Make sure to quickly understand what team you are interviewing for in the AA interview, and match your project responses to that.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. A Software Manager asking about projects and technical decisions within projects. Technical question was variation of common BST-related problem asked by Microsoft. 2. SWE asking about projects and teamwork. Technical question was Meeting Rooms 2. 3. Software Manager asking system design question. Fairly lax since New Grad, so just talk about things you would consider when building the system (how to make things scalable, what databases to have, important features). Question was about cloud services product design. 4. Normally called the AA meeting, only for people who did well, but for virtual interviews they seem to give this to everyone no matter what. With Senior manager who likely makes the ultimate decision based on feedback prior. Asked about your interests and past experience. Checks if you are match for the team. Technical question was along the lines of longest palindrome substring.
I applied online. I interviewed at Microsoft in Sep 2025
Interview
Three rounds - Includes Behavioral, Technical and a Bar Raiser Round.
Asked questions from my resume started with basic system designing and explored my knowledge in system design using microservices architecture.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Distributed Systems LLD Designing. Programming question random
Started with phone screening it went well then headed to a full loop of 3 rounds. Round 1 - LRU cache, Round 2- I don't remeber clearly but it was not that hard, leetcode medium, Round 3- easy binary sorting problem.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Past college project and a technical challenge I faced.
Round 1 - LRU cache, Round 2- I don't remeber clearly but it was not that hard, leetcode medium, Round 3- easy binary sorting problem.
Firstly Phone Interview * 1
Then on-site interview *3
Finally interview with Team Lead
Each interview has live coding problems included
Merely no behavior questions
all in Chinese, but one interviewer requested an english introduction
The interview process went very quickly
Interviewers were nice and polite