Passed the online assessment which consisted of two easy or possibly medium level LeetCode questions.
Coordinated setting up an interview through various recruiter contractors who refused to speak with me about the role. Got sent reems of prep material that was either impossible to do (know details about the role, and the people interviewing me), or was review stuff that wasn't matched up with what I asked (e.g. design Netflix/YouTube, design an Elevator System). Much of the information I got ahead of time conflicted with each other.
I spent 5 hours (including breaks) on interviews. I thought I did reasonably well, but apparently not good enough to move on. I thoughtI had a good rapore with everyone. In the end, the interview coordinator told me I didn't do well enough, but invited me to apply again in the future. When I ask when I can apply again, and for details on what I did well / what I didn't do well, I get ghosted.
I've interviewed at dozens of places, and this was by far the worst set of recruiters I've ever worked with. They should be ashamed.
Other Senior Software Engineer Interview Reviews for Microsoft
HR screening, one technical interview with the hiring manager then three interview loop which covered two system design and one dsa round.
System design was intensive and challenging.
It took them 5 weeks to come back with an offer. Background check was completed in a week, got joining date after 3 days.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a system for a startup company that let users post various types of content and get a unique url which can be shared with others to access the content
I applied online. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bengaluru) in Jun 2026
Interview
I got call via microsoft HR. She informed there will be 4 rounds of technical interviews all eliminator. Round 1 interview was a mid level graph question. The interviewer was actively involved, understood my logic, approach, challneged my assumeptions, did a dryrun at end, good experience. Round 2 inteviewer was extremely lazy and passive. It was a bad experience. He gave a problem statement of sliding window and disappeared. Wasn't intrested in hearing approach or even reading code. He came after 30 minutes , did a dry run and final output wasn't exactly correct. I identified a logical bug and started correcting it. He said there is no need , just finished the interview after that. The code i had written was optimal code but he didn't care to read that also. And there was still 20 minutes left. It gave me impression that interviewer in not at all interested in taking interview and they have been pushed my management. HR called next day to say i am not selected.
