Microsoft · Primly Community

Went through the Microsoft SWE loop last month, here's what actually happened

infra_ines · 5 replies

Applied to a senior SWE role on the Azure infra side. Recruiter reached out 8 days after application. Phone screen with the hiring manager first, which surprised me. It was mostly 'tell me about yourself' + 'why Microsoft' + one light system design sketch. Nothing crazy.

Then virtual onsite: 4 rounds in one day. I had a 30-minute break between rounds 2 and 3 which was actually enough to reset. Rounds looked like this: Round 1: two medium Leetcode problems. Got through both with maybe 8 minutes to spare. No tricks, just BFS/DFS territory. Round 2: system design. Rate limiter for an API gateway. I drove it, they pushed back on my Redis choice with 'what if we need this to be geo-distributed?' Good discussion. Round 3: behavioral + one coding. The behavioral was deep. 'Tell me about a time you disagreed with a technical decision and it turned out you were wrong.' They wanted details, not a tidy arc. Round 4: another behavioral, framed as 'growth mindset.' Literally. The interviewer said 'I'm looking for growth mindset signals today.' At least they're honest.

Offer came 6 days after the loop. Recruiter called, then email with details same day. Level came in at 63 (SWE II), which matched what I expected given my YOE.

The loop felt more relaxed than Google's in my experience but don't underestimate the behavioral weight. They will probe.

5 replies

sre_sol

the 'tell me a time you were wrong' question is almost universal on the Azure side from what i've seen. they really do care about it. i bombed that question in my loop two years ago because i picked an example where i was only sort of wrong and hedged the whole way through. don't do that.

infra_ines

yeah, i picked something where i was clearly wrong and it cost real time. felt risky but it landed. they want the full story, not the sanitized version.

numbers_only

63 is SWE II in the old band system. for context that's roughly mid-level. 64 is senior. did you negotiate or take the initial number?

jp_newgrad

how much did you grind leetcode before? i'm interviewing at microsoft in a few weeks and i'm worried i'm not ready for the mediums under pressure

infra_ines

honestly, maybe 3 weeks of daily practice, 2-3 problems a day. focused on patterns more than raw volume. the graphs and DP stuff. if you can talk through your approach before you code they seem to give you credit for the thinking even if you don't finish cleanly.