I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Microsoft in Oct 2010
Interview
Phone screen didn't really consist of traditional programming problems, but was asked a lot of questions about my experience.
One HR screen, very typical questions; easy.
On site interview consists of 5 one-one interviews. 3 interviews before lunch were a mix of 1. going over my resume, and then 2. 1/2 - 2 hours programming / design question.
There's no way I could have studied for the questions they asked, but a good understanding algorithms, design patterns, and an expertise in the language of your choice (eg. C# or C++) will do you fine. Relax, be yourself, and get a nights sleep.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
What did you think when you first saw the job description?
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Redmond, WA) in Nov 2010
Interview
I was first contacted by a recruiter who scheduled me for a phone interview and online skills assessment. The phone interview took 20 minutes and I was called back within a few hours where they informed me that they'd like to fly me down to headquarters for a day of interviewing. I was then flown down 3 weeks later where I spent the weekend in Redmond, WA on an all expenses paid trip courtesy of Microsoft. My day of interviews consisted of 4 1:1 interviews with employees within a specific team. I was then informed about a week later that they'd like to extend me an offer which I gladly accepted.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given an array of size N, filled with unique integers between 0 and N, how would you determine which integer was missing from the array. An initially simple question that was made increasingly harder after each correct answer to incorporate such things as memory/processor limitations, etc.