Microsoft Interview Questions

Review this list of 229 Microsoft interview questions and answers verified by hiring managers and candidates.
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    Video answer for 'How would you store a list of numbers as a single number?'
    +7

    "First thing the interviewee did wrong is not asking clarifying questions. This is the most vague problem I have every heard, and the interviewee just made assumptions and started programming."

    Nicholas S. - "First thing the interviewee did wrong is not asking clarifying questions. This is the most vague problem I have every heard, and the interviewee just made assumptions and started programming."See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +2 more
  • +9

    "I will have a discussion with him regarding why he disagrees with my solution. I will try to present him a plan about my solution. why I think its the best approach and take his feedback. I will try to analyze his approach and find the best in both approach. Will try to discuss with him and come up with an approach which is agreeable to both parties. The idea is refining the solution and approach instead of personally taking the disagreement. I will make sure that we are attacking the problem"

    Shanavas M. - "I will have a discussion with him regarding why he disagrees with my solution. I will try to present him a plan about my solution. why I think its the best approach and take his feedback. I will try to analyze his approach and find the best in both approach. Will try to discuss with him and come up with an approach which is agreeable to both parties. The idea is refining the solution and approach instead of personally taking the disagreement. I will make sure that we are attacking the problem"See full answer

    Behavioral
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 

    "Situation: While in the middle of a migration project, which required rewrite of services of my product into a cloud infra., we needed to configure our rules management services onto cloud as per legacy platform. The data extract of all the rules from legacy platform in a csv file needed heavy formatting to be usable for configuration of the new service. My entire engineering capacity was allocated on other prioritized ongoing feature migration and I had no bandwidth left in the ongoing spri"

    Geetesh T. - "Situation: While in the middle of a migration project, which required rewrite of services of my product into a cloud infra., we needed to configure our rules management services onto cloud as per legacy platform. The data extract of all the rules from legacy platform in a csv file needed heavy formatting to be usable for configuration of the new service. My entire engineering capacity was allocated on other prioritized ongoing feature migration and I had no bandwidth left in the ongoing spri"See full answer

    Customer Success Manager
    Behavioral
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    +22

    "Idea for solution: Reverse the complete char array Reverse the words separated by space. i.e. Find the space characters and the reverse the subarray between two space characters. vector reverseSubarray(vector& arr, int s, int e) { while (s reverseWords(vector& arr ) { int n = arr.size(); reverse(arr, 0, n - 1"

    Rahul M. - "Idea for solution: Reverse the complete char array Reverse the words separated by space. i.e. Find the space characters and the reverse the subarray between two space characters. vector reverseSubarray(vector& arr, int s, int e) { while (s reverseWords(vector& arr ) { int n = arr.size(); reverse(arr, 0, n - 1"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +4 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 

    "What are you strengths -: My strengths would include my eagerness to learn. This allows me to be open to new projects, roles and products and I can give my 100% to achieve the goals expected of me Other strengths would include my collaborative approach to work. I believe a team can achieve tremendous success if shares a common goal, respects other's opinions and contribution and is built on fundamental of trust Finally my biggest strength would be my commitment and passion to solve the custome"

    Amit A. - "What are you strengths -: My strengths would include my eagerness to learn. This allows me to be open to new projects, roles and products and I can give my 100% to achieve the goals expected of me Other strengths would include my collaborative approach to work. I believe a team can achieve tremendous success if shares a common goal, respects other's opinions and contribution and is built on fundamental of trust Finally my biggest strength would be my commitment and passion to solve the custome"See full answer

    Product Manager
    Behavioral
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  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    +2

    "I'm going to structure my answer like this so it is easy for both of us to follow up and grasp them easily. Let's first clear out some of the grey areas and make them black and white. Also, decide what are in-scope and out of scope. Second, let's understand what is our goal for improvement - is it the customer experience or any specific feature in mind? for a group of users? Third, I will brainstorm what are the pain points for user personas and solutions to improve them. Fourth, I will priorit"

    Suhasan C. - "I'm going to structure my answer like this so it is easy for both of us to follow up and grasp them easily. Let's first clear out some of the grey areas and make them black and white. Also, decide what are in-scope and out of scope. Second, let's understand what is our goal for improvement - is it the customer experience or any specific feature in mind? for a group of users? Third, I will brainstorm what are the pain points for user personas and solutions to improve them. Fourth, I will priorit"See full answer

    Product Design
  • "Think of an operating system (OS) as being similar to a person managing household tasks like you! Imagine you have several chores to do around the house, such as cooking, cleaning, and praying. Each of these tasks is like an individual app. You, in this case, are responsible for ensuring all these tasks are completed smoothly. When you cook, you decide what ingredients to buy, how much of each, and which utensils to use. For cleaning, you assess what surfaces need to be cleaned, whether you need"

    Ekta M. - "Think of an operating system (OS) as being similar to a person managing household tasks like you! Imagine you have several chores to do around the house, such as cooking, cleaning, and praying. Each of these tasks is like an individual app. You, in this case, are responsible for ensuring all these tasks are completed smoothly. When you cook, you decide what ingredients to buy, how much of each, and which utensils to use. For cleaning, you assess what surfaces need to be cleaned, whether you need"See full answer

    Product Manager
    Technical
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 

    "The traffic congestion is said to be messedup by vehichles on road.While technically it is said to be a server issue or any other.By using some advanced tech I go to solve that."

    Dheeraj sai P. - "The traffic congestion is said to be messedup by vehichles on road.While technically it is said to be a server issue or any other.By using some advanced tech I go to solve that."See full answer

    Product Manager
    Analytical
    +1 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    Video answer for 'Design a photo app for the blind.'

    "Context Photo app || Click images, videos via mobile app (android, ios) + editing + share + upload Who are we? || Startup who wants to build accessibility apps for the disabled people Why do we want to build this app? || Current apps are not usable by visually impaired, we can bring difference & gain market share. Constraints || To launch in next 12 months Is this app exclusively targeted for blind? || Yes but regular people may also use it but not our main target group **Goa"

    FuzzyLogic - "Context Photo app || Click images, videos via mobile app (android, ios) + editing + share + upload Who are we? || Startup who wants to build accessibility apps for the disabled people Why do we want to build this app? || Current apps are not usable by visually impaired, we can bring difference & gain market share. Constraints || To launch in next 12 months Is this app exclusively targeted for blind? || Yes but regular people may also use it but not our main target group **Goa"See full answer

    Product Design
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    +2

    "When I transitioned from the Analytics team to the Product team, I faced challenges in gaining the trust of the engineering team. Having previously worked with them in a role where I provided insights rather than defining their priorities, they were initially hesitant to accept my inputs in my new role. This led to some misalignment, as they chose to focus on tasks independently rather than incorporating my recommendations. Recognizing the need to build credibility, I took a proactive approach."

    Shahrukh K. - "When I transitioned from the Analytics team to the Product team, I faced challenges in gaining the trust of the engineering team. Having previously worked with them in a role where I provided insights rather than defining their priorities, they were initially hesitant to accept my inputs in my new role. This led to some misalignment, as they chose to focus on tasks independently rather than incorporating my recommendations. Recognizing the need to build credibility, I took a proactive approach."See full answer

    BizOps & Strategy
    Behavioral
    +1 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    +1

    "First find the node that we need to delete. After it's found, think about ways to keep the tree BST after deleting the node. a. If there's no left or right subtree, we found the leaf. Delete this node without any further traversing. b. If it's not a leaf node, what node we can use from the subtree that can replace the delete node and still maintain the BST property? We can either replace the delete node with the minimum from the right subtree (if right exists) or we can replace the delete"

    An D. - "First find the node that we need to delete. After it's found, think about ways to keep the tree BST after deleting the node. a. If there's no left or right subtree, we found the leaf. Delete this node without any further traversing. b. If it's not a leaf node, what node we can use from the subtree that can replace the delete node and still maintain the BST property? We can either replace the delete node with the minimum from the right subtree (if right exists) or we can replace the delete"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Coding
  • "I once had to change a decision i had previously made when I got stakeholder feedback that seemed to contradict what was already designed or already even built - such as the way a page was architected or the designs or colors used on a page. I had a justification for all decisions made, but sometimes the stakeholder feedback brings a perspective, such as a part of the user experience, that I had not thought of before. So I then went back to the original design or product and made an adjustment o"

    Sarah K. - "I once had to change a decision i had previously made when I got stakeholder feedback that seemed to contradict what was already designed or already even built - such as the way a page was architected or the designs or colors used on a page. I had a justification for all decisions made, but sometimes the stakeholder feedback brings a perspective, such as a part of the user experience, that I had not thought of before. So I then went back to the original design or product and made an adjustment o"See full answer

    Solutions Architect
    Behavioral
  • "(i) helped others success Over the years, I’ve had a few non-technical friends who wanted to start companies. Around two years ago, one of these friends reached out to ask for some guidance on how to start. This individual wanted to take the Airbnb model and apply it to outdoor recreational activities, mainly hunting and fishing. His problem was he had no frame of reference for where to start of what kind of effort and investment it would take. Over the course of a couple of conversations I help"

    John F. - "(i) helped others success Over the years, I’ve had a few non-technical friends who wanted to start companies. Around two years ago, one of these friends reached out to ask for some guidance on how to start. This individual wanted to take the Airbnb model and apply it to outdoor recreational activities, mainly hunting and fishing. His problem was he had no frame of reference for where to start of what kind of effort and investment it would take. Over the course of a couple of conversations I help"See full answer

    Product Manager
    Behavioral
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 

    "Let me try to explain it with simple life analogy You're cooking dinner in the kitchen. Multithreading is when you've got a bunch of friends helping out. Each friend does a different job—like one chops veggies while another stirs a sauce. Everyone focuses on their task, and together, you all make the meal faster. In a computer, it's like different jobs happening all at once, making stuff happen quicker, just like having lots of friends helping makes dinner ready faster."

    Praveen D. - "Let me try to explain it with simple life analogy You're cooking dinner in the kitchen. Multithreading is when you've got a bunch of friends helping out. Each friend does a different job—like one chops veggies while another stirs a sauce. Everyone focuses on their task, and together, you all make the meal faster. In a computer, it's like different jobs happening all at once, making stuff happen quicker, just like having lots of friends helping makes dinner ready faster."See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +1 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 

    "Imagine a blockchain as a magical, unchangeable diary that keeps track of all the candies you share with your friends. Whenever you share a candy, you write it down in this special diary, and your friends also write it down in their diaries. But here's the cool part – all the diaries are connected and can talk to each other! So, when you want to know who has borrowed your candy or if you borrowed candy from someone else, you just check this special diary. It shows you the history of all the can"

    Maedu E. - "Imagine a blockchain as a magical, unchangeable diary that keeps track of all the candies you share with your friends. Whenever you share a candy, you write it down in this special diary, and your friends also write it down in their diaries. But here's the cool part – all the diaries are connected and can talk to each other! So, when you want to know who has borrowed your candy or if you borrowed candy from someone else, you just check this special diary. It shows you the history of all the can"See full answer

    Product Manager
    Behavioral
    +1 more
  • "Recently, I was listening to an episode of Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast (aptly named Lenny’s Podcast), where he interviews Christian Idiodi, talking about the essence of product management. In the open sequence, Christian talks about the essence of this job being “you wake up on behalf of someone else, and you have to do it well enough that they give you something back in return.” This statement really struck a chord with me and resonated with why I love being a product manager. Customers and their"

    John F. - "Recently, I was listening to an episode of Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast (aptly named Lenny’s Podcast), where he interviews Christian Idiodi, talking about the essence of product management. In the open sequence, Christian talks about the essence of this job being “you wake up on behalf of someone else, and you have to do it well enough that they give you something back in return.” This statement really struck a chord with me and resonated with why I love being a product manager. Customers and their"See full answer

    Product Manager
    Behavioral
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 

    "A load balancer, web application servers and a large database. Database is the core of the application containing the songs and tags related to each song. Application server will provide the search interface to find songs, play them and search them in specific categories or channels."

    Soraya B. - "A load balancer, web application servers and a large database. Database is the core of the application containing the songs and tags related to each song. Application server will provide the search interface to find songs, play them and search them in specific categories or channels."See full answer

    Product Manager
    Technical
  • "Abstract class A class that can have Abstract methods - without implementations and Concerete Methods i.e with implementation. Can have private, protected and public access modifiers. Supports Single inheritance i.e a class can extend only 1 abstract class Can have constructors Mainly used when sharing common behaviors Interface Class A collection of abstract methods ( can have static and default methods also - onwards of java 8) Public, static, final are the access"

    Sue G. - "Abstract class A class that can have Abstract methods - without implementations and Concerete Methods i.e with implementation. Can have private, protected and public access modifiers. Supports Single inheritance i.e a class can extend only 1 abstract class Can have constructors Mainly used when sharing common behaviors Interface Class A collection of abstract methods ( can have static and default methods also - onwards of java 8) Public, static, final are the access"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Coding
    +2 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    Video answer for 'Design a key-value store.'

    "Simple file system ( Hash Map , LSM trees), and consistent hashing. I failed to discuss about conflicts ( Versioning)"

    V V. - "Simple file system ( Hash Map , LSM trees), and consistent hashing. I failed to discuss about conflicts ( Versioning)"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
    +2 more
Showing 41-60 of 229