Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Microsoft with 3.2 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 64% positive. To compare, the company-average is 66.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 29 days to get hired, when considering 1,696 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Microsoft overall takes an average of 30 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Microsoft as a Software Engineer according to 1,696 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 26%
Phone interview: 23%
Skills test: 15%
Presentation: 11%
Background check: 6%
Personality test: 5%
Group panel interview: 5%
IQ intelligence test: 4%
Drug test: 3%
Other: 2%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied online. I interviewed at Microsoft (Taipei) in Feb 2026
Interview
A 45-minute phone screen that primarily focused on my resume and past work experience. The interviewer asked detailed questions about my previous projects, responsibilities, and specific technical decisions, including deep dives into the technologies I used and how I approached problem-solving.
I applied, took the online assessment, and did a hiring event loop. The loop had 4 technical rounds, including a low level design. DSA. The hiring events are on Wednesdays.
Three rounds: online assessment with two LeetCode-style problems (medium difficulty, graphs and dynamic programming), a system design round focused on designing a rate limiter at scale, and a behavioral round with standard competency questions. Interviewers were professional and gave clear feedback between rounds.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a system that handles 100,000 requests per second with rate limiting per user and per IP. Walk me through your architecture choices
I applied through college or university. I interviewed at Microsoft
Interview
I attended only the coding round session and was not able to get selected. The experience was good and need to learn harder for the next attempt for this same role