Microsoft Senior Software Developer Engineer interview questions
based on 310 ratings - Updated Jun 20, 2026
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Senior Software Developer Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Microsoft with 3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 100% positive. To compare, the company-average is 67.6% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
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I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft in Jun 2023
Interview
Got referred by an engineering manager there, so my first interview was with a staff engineer. This was the worst interview experience I've ever had in my 10+ year career working at 7 companies and doing lots of interviews in between. The interview is based on these silly leetcode brainteaser kind of questions that is designed to make candidates fail if they didn't specifically study for these kinds of questions and were lucky enough to have a chance to see a question that they've seen before where they can memorize the algorithm and the answer, instead of any actual real life software engineering skills.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
My first question was very specific to Java/C# where my main language was with JavaScript, I was asked about to implement threadpooling in a language of choice which is very java specific where JavaScript is a single threaded language so it didnt make any sense. The second question was the leetcode question I was asked this leet code question https://leetcode.com/problems/rotate-image/ , rotating a 2D matrix clockwise, good luck figuring out how to solve it in your brain let alone writing it in code.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Microsoft (Belgrade) in Mar 2021
Interview
Interview cosists of 4 45 minutes sessions in a row. They are coding challenge, system design, culture and leadership. Interviewers are very friendly and supportive. Best 8nterview ever. Questions are tech agnostic so they are really looking for a "talent" and not someone with specific skillset.
Interview 1: Q1: Question was related to finding max subtree. Q2: LLD of electric switch with different modes possible. Interview 2: Q1. HLD of a recommendation system. . . .
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Interview 1: Q1: Question was related to finding max subtree. Q2: LLD of electric switch with different modes possible. Interview 2: Q1. HLD of a recommendation system. . . .