Microsoft Software Engineering Intern Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 235 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Microsoft.
Microsoft
Software Engineering Intern
Intern Average Positive experience No offer 1 round
Interview process
Technical screen
Interview formats
Technical Coding
Maximum subarray questions + oops + dbms. find the contiguous (connected) sequence of numbers within a 1D array that has the largest possible sum, a classic computer science problem solvable efficiently with Kadane's Algorithm (Dynamic Programming/Greedy) in O(N) time, handling positive, negative numbers, and returning just the sum. Variations exist, like finding the maximum product or handling 2D arrays.
Confirmed questions1 question
- find the contiguous (connected) subsequence of numbers in a 1D array that gives the largest possible sum, the classic problem solved efficiently with Kadane's Algorithm (Dynamic Programming/Greedy) in O(N), dealing with positive and negative numbers and returning only the sum, with variations like maximum product or 2D array versions.
Microsoft
Software Engineering Intern
Intern Average Positive experience No offer 2 rounds
Interview process
Technical screen Technical screen
Interview formats
Coding Technical
2–3 coding problems (DSA – arrays, strings, graphs, DP, MST, etc.) plus MCQs on: CS fundamentals (OS, DBMS, OOP) and Aptitude/Math logic. Time: ~60–90 minutes. 2. 👨💻 Technical Interview Round 1 DSA + Core concepts. Common topics: Arrays, HashMaps, Two Pointers, Graph/Tree traversal (DFS/BFS, MST like Prim/Kruskal), and time & space complexity analysis. You may be asked to write/run code in C++/Java/Python.
Confirmed questions1 question
- dsa and computer fundamentals like find peaks and valleys in an array, trapping rainwater
Microsoft
Software Engineering Intern
Intern Average Negative experience No offer 2 rounds Same day
Interview process
Take home Technical screen Onsite
Interview formats
Technical Coding
This is about an on campus interview for MS Hyderabad from a couple of years back. After clearing the OT and the first interview round, we were told to wait for the second round. In the second round, they first interviewed only all the girls, and after finishing their interviews, they told the rest of us that we could leave (without giving us the second interview we were waiting for). I feel that if they only wanted to recruit women, they could have said it clearly from the beginning. Many companies do diversity hiring drives and mostly no one has an issue with that. They didn’t need to waste everyone’s time or give us hope of getting the internship. They tried to show to the rest of the college that coincidentally all the good candidates they selected were girls, and that there was no bias. But for anyone who was there, it was quite obvious that it was rigged. I don’t understand why they did it like this. It basically didn’t benefit anyone involved.
Confirmed questions2 questions
- Y shaped linked list problem. Find the point where the two lists intersect - you can search it on gfg/leetcode
- Egg dropping puzzle - you can look it up on gfg/leetcode
Microsoft Software Engineering Intern Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Microsoft interview reports.
“Write a function that takes a list and returns the count of the most frequently appearing item in that list.”
Read reports →“Given three strings, "s", "ssearch" and "sreplace", look through s for the substring ssearch and for every time you find ssearch, replace that section of s with sreplace.”
Read reports →“Given an array of size n containing numbers from 0 to n+1, find the missing number with O(n) time complexity and O(1) space complexity.”
Read reports →“Implement a function that finds the first pair of integers in an array whose sum equals a given number.”
Read reports →“find the contiguous (connected) subsequence of numbers in a 1D array that gives the largest possible sum, the classic problem solved efficiently with Kadane's Algorithm (Dynamic Programming/Greedy) in O(N), dealing with positive and negative numbers and returning only the sum, with variations like maximum product or 2D array versions.”
Read report →“Given a binary search tree containing numbers, write a program that returns the level that has the highest average.”
Read report →“Given an ascending sorted array of ints, design an algorithm that moves all the duplicates to the back, e.g. [1,2,2,4,5,5] → [1,2,4,5,2,5].”
Read report →“If you’re given a list of integers, how would you find 3 integers that give the largest possible product?”
Read report →“Design an app that makes sure people in the same household don’t end up buying two of the same grocery item.”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 235 Microsoft interview reports.