Microsoft interview process (2026)
Round-by-round breakdown of the Microsoft software engineering interview across 4 levels and 23 rounds: interview mode, sample questions, and worked solutions.
Software Engineering / SDE Intern (Summer)
Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: ~1-2 week · Recommended prep: 6-10 weeks · Cooldown: No formally published cooldown for interns; candidates who d
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Round 0: Online Assessment (Coding / DSA)
Assessment · 90-120 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Online assessment
Sample question: Validate Binary Search Tree — Given the root of a binary tree, determine whether it is a valid binary search tree (every node's left subtree has strictly smaller values, right subtree strictly larger). Input is level-order, space-separated, with 'null' for missing children. Print 'true' or 'false'.
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Round 1: Technical Interview 1 (Coding)
Onsite · 45-50 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Coin Change — Given coin denominations and a target amount, return the fewest number of coins needed to make up that amount, or -1 if it cannot be made. Input: first line = space-separated coin values; second line = the amount.
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Round 2: Technical Interview 2 + Applied / Product (final loop round)
Onsite · 45-50 minutes · difficulty 2/5
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: House Robber — Given an array of non-negative integers representing money in houses along a street, return the maximum amount you can rob without robbing two adjacent houses. Input: one line of space-separated integers.
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Round 3: HR / Behavioral + Manager Fit
Behavioral · 20-40 minutes · difficulty 1/5
Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview
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Round 4: Offer
Offer · N/A
Mode of interview: Offer discussion
SDE (L59/L60)
Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: 3-5 weeks · Recommended prep: 4-6 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months
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Round 0: Recruiter Screen
Phone · ~30 min · difficulty 1/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview
Sample question: Why Microsoft, and what are you looking for in your next role?
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Round 1: Online Assessment (Codility)
Assessment · ~60 min · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Online assessment
Sample question: Number of Islands — Given an m x n grid of '1' (land) and '0' (water), count the number of islands. An island is formed by connecting adjacent land cells horizontally or vertically.
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Round 2: Onsite Loop - Coding Round 1 (DSA)
Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Live interview · CoderPad
Sample question: Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters — Given a string s, find the length of the longest substring that contains no repeating characters.
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Round 3: Onsite Loop - Coding Round 2 (LRU / Data Structures)
Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Binary Tree Level Order Traversal — Given the root of a binary tree, return the level-order traversal of its node values (values grouped level by level, left to right).
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Round 4: Onsite Loop - Coding + CS Fundamentals / OOD
Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Two Sum — Given an array of integers nums and an integer target, return the indices of the two numbers that add up to target. Exactly one solution exists.
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Round 5: AA / As-Appropriate Round (final)
Behavioral · ~30-60 min · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview
Sample question: Tell me about a time you had to learn something completely new, and about your biggest failure and what you took from it.
SDE II (L61/L62)
Difficulty: Hard · Timeline: 4-6 weeks · Recommended prep: 5-7 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months
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Round 0: Recruiter Screen
Phone · 20-30 min · difficulty 1/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview
Sample question: Walk me through your current scope and why you're targeting SDE II at Microsoft.
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Round 1: Online Assessment or Technical Phone Screen
Assessment · ~60 min · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Online assessment
Sample question: LRU Cache — Design a fixed-capacity Least-Recently-Used (LRU) cache. Support get(key) and put(key, value) in O(1); on overflow, evict the least recently used entry.
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Round 2: Onsite Loop - Coding Round 1
Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Copy List with Random Pointer — A linked list of length n has each node carrying a next pointer and a random pointer (to any node or null). Construct a deep copy of the list.
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Round 3: Onsite Loop - Coding Round 2
Onsite · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Reverse Nodes in k-Group — Given the head of a linked list, reverse the nodes k at a time and return the modified list. Nodes in a final group of fewer than k stay in original order.
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Round 4: Onsite Loop - System Design
System_design · 45-60 min · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Live system design interview
Sample question: Design a URL Shortener (TinyURL) — Design a URL shortening service like TinyURL: generate short unique aliases for long URLs and redirect. Cover the API, unique-ID generation (Snowflake / Base62), storage schema, read-heavy caching, and multi-region deployment.
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Round 5: AA / As-Appropriate Round (final)
Behavioral · ~30-60 min · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview
Sample question: Tell me about a time you influenced a decision without authority, and about a significant failure and what you changed afterward.
Senior SDE (L63/L64)
Difficulty: Hard · Timeline: 4-7 weeks · Recommended prep: 6-8 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months
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Round 0: Recruiter / Hiring Manager Screen
Phone · ~30 min · difficulty 1/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview
Sample question: Tell me about the largest system you've owned end-to-end and the hardest tradeoff you made.
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Round 1: Technical Phone Screen (OA often waived)
Phone · ~45-60 min · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview
Sample question: Integer to English Words — Convert a non-negative integer (up to ~2^31-1) into its English words representation, e.g. 1234567 -> "One Million Two Hundred Thirty Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty Seven".
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Round 2: Onsite Loop - Coding Round 1 (Trees/Graphs)
Onsite · ~60 min · difficulty 4/5
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Serialize and Deserialize Binary Tree — Design an algorithm to serialize a binary tree to a string and deserialize it back into the identical tree. No format is imposed; ensure the round-trip is exact.
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Round 3: Onsite Loop - Coding + Concurrency
Onsite · ~60 min · difficulty 4/5
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Median of Two Sorted Arrays — Given two sorted arrays nums1 and nums2 of sizes m and n, return the median of the combined sorted array. Aim for O(log(m+n)).
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Round 4: Onsite Loop - System Design (heavy)
System_design · 60-90 min · difficulty 4/5
Mode of interview: Live system design interview
Sample question: Design a Distributed Cache System — Design a horizontally scalable distributed cache / key-value store: partitioning via consistent hashing, replication and consistency model, eviction policy, hot-key handling, cache invalidation, and failure/recovery. Expect mid-interview constraint changes.
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Round 5: AA / Bar-Raiser Round (final)
Behavioral · ~60-90 min · difficulty 4/5
Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview
Sample question: Walk me through a system you designed recently, defend the key tradeoffs, and tell me about a time you drove alignment across teams against resistance.
Other companies' interview processes
Worked sample solutions (code, design diagrams, and STAR answers) for every round are available in the FAANGPlus app: open interview processes.