# Microsoft Software Engineer Interview Experiences Aced (formerly Exponent) publishes a public search API over its indexed pages; the guide is at https://www.aced.io/agents/agent-access. Source: https://www.aced.io/guides/microsoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview/experiences Source observed: 2026-11-04T21:34:27.594Z Last checked: 2026-11-04T21:34:27.594+00:00 Indexed: 2026-11-05T01:45:17.403+00:00 --- # Microsoft Software Engineer Interview Experiences We provide candidate-reported experiences for the Microsoft software engineer interview process. The collection was updated a month ago by Microsoft candidates and includes 25 interview experiences, 102 questions, and 138 resumes. - [Expert guide](https://www.aced.io/guides/microsoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview) - [Interview experiences](https://www.aced.io/guides/microsoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview/experiences) - [Questions](https://www.aced.io/guides/microsoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview/questions) - [Resumes](https://www.aced.io/guides/microsoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview/resumes) [![Microsoft logo](https://exponent-static.s3.amazonaws.com/company_logos/microsoft.png)](https://www.aced.io/guides/microsoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview) ## Summary of reported experiences - **Interview difficulty:** Most candidates rate the interview as **moderate**. The displayed ratings are 0 very easy, 1 easy, 17 moderate, 1 difficult, and 0 very difficult. - **Reported outcomes:** **50%** of reported interviews result in an offer. The displayed totals are 7 no offer, 1 declined, and 6 accepted. - **Most frequent question areas:** Coding (17) and Data Structures & Algorithms (16), followed by Other (16) and Behavioral (9). These figures summarize the reported interviews in this collection, not Microsoft-wide hiring outcomes. ## Featured experience: Software Development Engineer II - **Company:** Microsoft - **Level:** Mid Level / L4 - **Location:** United States - **Submitted:** May 12, 2026 - **Status:** Verified; April 2026; Moderate The candidate described a relatively long SDE II process. It began with a HackerRank assessment, followed by a one-hour recruiter screen focused on motivation and culture fit, and then three back-to-back interviews covering coding, system design, and low-level design. Several prompts were vague, so the candidate had to ask questions to uncover requirements. In the coding round, the interviewer appeared more interested in the reasoning used to solve a binary-tree problem than in using the exact BFS or DFS terminology. The candidate found the difficulty similar to Google or Amazon, with somewhat more emphasis on logical thinking and culture. ### Questions shown for this experience - [Why do you want to work at Microsoft?](https://www.aced.io/questions/1727) - [Tell me about a time you had a conflict with your manager.](https://www.aced.io/questions/4877) - [Design a system that delivers firmware updates to devices.](https://www.aced.io/questions/5984) - [+6 more questions](https://www.aced.io/experiences/microsoft-software-engineer-interview-ca84de?returnPath=%2Fguides%2Fmicrosoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview%2Fexperiences) [Read the full experience](https://www.aced.io/experiences/microsoft-software-engineer-interview-ca84de?returnPath=%2Fguides%2Fmicrosoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview%2Fexperiences) ## Additional reported experiences The page also lists the following candidate reports and question topics. Some full reports and questions are available only after sharing an experience or becoming a member. ### Software Engineer (SC2) A candidate interviewed for an SC2 role on Microsoft's Experience + Devices team, focused on Copilot integration into Microsoft 365. The process included an engineer screen and a four-round final loop over two days. The candidate reported that all final interviewers were principal-level and that coding appeared in nearly every round, including system design and hiring-manager rounds. A file-system prompt expected low-level design implemented with classes and multiple use cases in 45 minutes. The reported outcome was still pending after the recruiter did not respond for a month. Questions included: - Tell me about a time you had a conflict with someone. How did you resolve it and what did you learn? - Tell me about a project where you had to teach yourself something new to solve a problem or complete a task. - Design a file system. ### Other Software Engineer reports - One candidate reported being still in progress and preparing with LeetCode, data structures and algorithms, system design, and dynamic programming. Question: **Build a TTL cache.** - One candidate described an easy round covering current responsibilities and work, plus a coding question. Question: **Tell me about your current role.** - One candidate reported confusing LRU and LFU. Question: **Design LFU cache.** - One candidate described direct application and recruiter outreach for a senior software engineer interview. Questions: **Design a timer system** and **Implement LRU Cache.** - Another senior software engineer report also listed **Implement LRU Cache.** - One report described a one-hour hiring-manager round followed by four one-hour virtual-onsite rounds. Question: **Implement LRU Cache.** - One senior software engineer candidate said the process did not go as expected, with fewer interviews than expected and a recruiter change midway. Questions: **Tell me about yourself**, **Tell me about your biggest failure**, and **How do you stay up-to-date with the latest developments in AI?** - One Software Engineer II candidate described a fast process with all rounds scheduled in the same week. Technical interviews used real-world code implementations rather than direct LeetCode-style problems, and the system-design round had ambiguous, open-ended requirements. Questions: **Tell me about yourself**, **Implement LRU Cache**, and **What timeline do you have in the interview process?** - One candidate described a screen plus three loop rounds, all four back-to-back in one day. Coding questions were standard but included difficult follow-ups and edge-case probing. Behavioral questions were mixed into coding rounds. Questions: **Tell me about a time when you faced a conflict while on a team**, **Find the median from a data stream**, and **Implement @ tagging like Teams/Slack.** - One report listed a HackerRank assessment followed by explaining a leader-follower election system. Question: **Explain the leader follower election in a distributed system.** - One candidate reported two medium coding questions in the assessment, followed by a three-round loop containing two medium coding rounds and one computer-science fundamentals round. Questions: **Letter Combinations of a Phone Number**, **Check if word exists in the string**, and **Accounts Merge.** - One candidate reached the final round, answered three questions, and reported an offer two days later. The topics included linked lists, object-oriented programming with queues, inheritance, and resume discussion. Question: **Reorder linked list.** - One Software Engineer II candidate found the process smooth and interviewers helpful but had not previously seen the LRU-cache problem. Questions: **Implement LRU Cache**, **Design a calender (LLD)**, and **Find next greater element.** - One report listed: **Given an array of integers, return the pairs with the minimum absolute difference between them.** and **Given an integer, reverse it. Integers are within range [-2^15, 2^15 - 1].** - One intern report listed: **Implement a function to justify a list of words within a given width.** and **Given two empty jugs with capacities a and b liters and an infinite water supply, determine a way to end up with exactly X liters of water.** - One candidate described a structured process covering coding, design, behavioral topics, system design, real-world engineering challenges, trade-offs, scalability, and clarifying questions. Question: **You are given n courses labeled from 0 to n-1. Some courses have prerequisites. For example: [1, 0] means: To take course 1, you must first complete course 0. Determine a valid order in which all courses can be completed.** - One candidate reported difficult LeetCode questions, graph questions, and debugging questions. Question: **Design a distributed system.** - One candidate solved all four onsite rounds and said communication was important. Topics included experience, three easy-to-medium LeetCode questions, and low-level design with data modeling. - One candidate described a technical introductory round followed by a conversational second round. Questions: **What is Object Oriented Programming (OOP)?** and **Define OOP.** - One candidate discussed a challenging past project and a high-level design for a configuration service that updates configurations across multiple microservices. Question: **Implement LRU Cache.** - One report listed behavioral and technical prompts: **Tell me about yourself**, **What is a technical challenge you faced in your previous project?**, **What do you do if your team is blocking you?**, and **Explain multithreading.** - One report listed **Why should we hire you?**, **Reverse a Sentence**, **Find the longest substring without repeating characters**, **Koko eating bananas**, and **Tell me about your current role.** - Another Software Engineer II report repeated a fast process with real-world code implementations and an ambiguous system-design round. Questions: **Tell me about yourself**, **Implement LRU Cache**, and **What timeline are you in the interview process?** ## Access to the collection We offer trial access when you share your own interview experience. Becoming a member unlocks all interview experiences. - [Share your experience](https://www.aced.io/questions/contribute?src=guide-experiences) - [Become a member](https://www.aced.io/upgrade?src=guide-experiences) ## Related Microsoft interview resources - [Microsoft Entry-Level Software Engineer Interview Guide](https://www.aced.io/guides/microsoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview) - [Microsoft interview questions](https://www.aced.io/guides/microsoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview/questions) - [Microsoft resumes](https://www.aced.io/guides/microsoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview/resumes) - [Share an interview experience](https://www.aced.io/questions/contribute?src=guide) --- [Read this page’s summary](https://www.aced.io/agents/api/public/v1/page-tldr?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aced.io%2Fguides%2Fmicrosoft-entry-level-software-engineer-interview%2Fexperiences&trace=t_679ff9ab98f3) ## Ask a follow-up about this page Need a more specific answer? 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