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Microsoft Interview Questions

Review this list of 263 Microsoft interview questions and answers verified by hiring managers and candidates.
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    2 answers

    "Ask my manager how urgent is my task and why it should be done if needed. If its urgent enough and I can’t wait, communicate with team explaining what goals going to be achieved by implementing and why its important"

    Anonymous Starfish - "Ask my manager how urgent is my task and why it should be done if needed. If its urgent enough and I can’t wait, communicate with team explaining what goals going to be achieved by implementing and why its important"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Behavioral
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    1 answer

    "Functional Requirement Upload the file of any type POST v1/drive Upload the another version of file. POST v1/drive/{fileId} Delete the file. DELETE v1/drive/{fileId} Share the file. POST v1/drive/{fileId} Control the access level of the file. Provide the file accessibility following the directory structure. Non Functional Requirement Reliability: The file along with its versions uploaded should be"

    Vikash A. - "Functional Requirement Upload the file of any type POST v1/drive Upload the another version of file. POST v1/drive/{fileId} Delete the file. DELETE v1/drive/{fileId} Share the file. POST v1/drive/{fileId} Control the access level of the file. Provide the file accessibility following the directory structure. Non Functional Requirement Reliability: The file along with its versions uploaded should be"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    1 answer

    "During the course of my career, I have had the opportunity to fill a variety of roles. I’ve been a business analyst, a consultant, a project manager, a scrum master, a product owner, and a product manager. Each of these has had aspects that I have enjoyed. There are a few that standout though over everything else. First is that I have a passion for working with people. In each of these roles, my favorite part was always working with a diverse range of individuals from various levels of the orga"

    John F. - "During the course of my career, I have had the opportunity to fill a variety of roles. I’ve been a business analyst, a consultant, a project manager, a scrum master, a product owner, and a product manager. Each of these has had aspects that I have enjoyed. There are a few that standout though over everything else. First is that I have a passion for working with people. In each of these roles, my favorite part was always working with a diverse range of individuals from various levels of the orga"See full answer

    Product Manager
    Behavioral
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    6 answers
    +3

    "Me: That's an interesting challenge. I would like to get some clarifications before jumping into potential solutions. Are we talking about the global search market irrespective of device or are we talking about a specific geography / device type? Interviewer: Lets go ahead with all possible searches. Me: Ok. Is there a specific reason we want to capture a significant market share from Google (e.g. higher search revenue, cross-selling MSFT services etc.) and are there any timelines we should k"

    Harsh W. - "Me: That's an interesting challenge. I would like to get some clarifications before jumping into potential solutions. Are we talking about the global search market irrespective of device or are we talking about a specific geography / device type? Interviewer: Lets go ahead with all possible searches. Me: Ok. Is there a specific reason we want to capture a significant market share from Google (e.g. higher search revenue, cross-selling MSFT services etc.) and are there any timelines we should k"See full answer

    Analytical
    Execution
    +1 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    1 answer

    "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
    +1 more
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  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    2 answers

    "First of all, stack and heap memory are abstraction on top of the hardware by the compiler. The hardware is not aware of stack and heap memory. There is only a single piece of memory that a program has access to. The compiler creates the concepts of stack and heap memory to run the programs efficiently. Programs use stack memory to store local variables and a few important register values such as frame pointer and return address for program counter. This makes it easier for the compiler to gene"

    Stanley Y. - "First of all, stack and heap memory are abstraction on top of the hardware by the compiler. The hardware is not aware of stack and heap memory. There is only a single piece of memory that a program has access to. The compiler creates the concepts of stack and heap memory to run the programs efficiently. Programs use stack memory to store local variables and a few important register values such as frame pointer and return address for program counter. This makes it easier for the compiler to gene"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +2 more
  • +4

    "Me: First of all, I’d like to have some clarification about this project. Me: What is the current product line design of the vending machine? Is this a traditional vending machine? Customers pay money cash or credit card, and select products and receive the product. Interviewer: Yes, that is the correct assumption. We make vending machines for canned drinks and bottled drinks. Another product line is for selling small packaged snacks. Me: What is the goal of this project? Is"

    Takashi M. - "Me: First of all, I’d like to have some clarification about this project. Me: What is the current product line design of the vending machine? Is this a traditional vending machine? Customers pay money cash or credit card, and select products and receive the product. Interviewer: Yes, that is the correct assumption. We make vending machines for canned drinks and bottled drinks. Another product line is for selling small packaged snacks. Me: What is the goal of this project? Is"See full answer

    Execution
    Product Design
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    1 answer

    "That is a great product opportunity. I see the vision to drive engagement by building a reward based experience to encourage kids to login to the app and track their books and trigger a visual pleasing experience when the child completes a book. The more complex the book, the bigger the reward."

    Christina Z. - "That is a great product opportunity. I see the vision to drive engagement by building a reward based experience to encourage kids to login to the app and track their books and trigger a visual pleasing experience when the child completes a book. The more complex the book, the bigger the reward."See full answer

    Product Manager
    Product Design
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    5 answers
    Video answer for 'How do you select the value of 'k' in the k-means algorithm?'
    +2

    "As an interviewer, I have asked this question to candidates in the past. Here are the major topics I am looking for in an interview The candidate should understand that there are ways of measuring the loss of a particular clustering. For example, we can take the average distance of each point to it's cluster center. The candidate should understand that this loss will always decrease as the number of clusters increases. For that reason, we can't just pick the value of K that minimizes the l"

    Michael F. - "As an interviewer, I have asked this question to candidates in the past. Here are the major topics I am looking for in an interview The candidate should understand that there are ways of measuring the loss of a particular clustering. For example, we can take the average distance of each point to it's cluster center. The candidate should understand that this loss will always decrease as the number of clusters increases. For that reason, we can't just pick the value of K that minimizes the l"See full answer

    Machine Learning Engineer
    Concept
    +1 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    1 answer

    "I first clarified what he needed for the leaderboard meaning did he need a gaming leaderboard system, a stock market leaderboard system where the trades placed would be ranked in terms of values or a coding platform leaderboard where the users are ranked as per the points earned by solving the problem? He answered that he wanted a multipurpose leaderboard system He was specifically interested in the design of the api part Explained him that assuming we had a flask api there would be a get re"

    GalacticInterviewer - "I first clarified what he needed for the leaderboard meaning did he need a gaming leaderboard system, a stock market leaderboard system where the trades placed would be ranked in terms of values or a coding platform leaderboard where the users are ranked as per the points earned by solving the problem? He answered that he wanted a multipurpose leaderboard system He was specifically interested in the design of the api part Explained him that assuming we had a flask api there would be a get re"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    2 answers
    Video answer for 'How would you use VR to improve education?'

    "I got to play with a VR for the first time a few weeks ago at my friend’s house and I loved it, so this is a really fun question. Clarifying Questions Is this something we are looking to create Microsoft or are we a startup company etc? > Education can refer to elementary, high school, university, or even self-learning (e.g. Udemy). Is there a specific area we want to focus on? << What do y"

    Rohan S. - "I got to play with a VR for the first time a few weeks ago at my friend’s house and I loved it, so this is a really fun question. Clarifying Questions Is this something we are looking to create Microsoft or are we a startup company etc? > Education can refer to elementary, high school, university, or even self-learning (e.g. Udemy). Is there a specific area we want to focus on? << What do y"See full answer

    Concept
    Product Design
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    2 answers

    "Clarifying questions Key value proposition of the product: targeted search engine for kids to search the internet Target users: kids below 18 years of age Target geography: USA Form factor: web app Target market Kids (largely school students) are now increasingly using the internet for educational purposes to perform assignments, collaborate on projects etc. A search engine is a core need to access the internet for this audience and is needed quite frequently - almost every time a"

    Rahul J. - "Clarifying questions Key value proposition of the product: targeted search engine for kids to search the internet Target users: kids below 18 years of age Target geography: USA Form factor: web app Target market Kids (largely school students) are now increasingly using the internet for educational purposes to perform assignments, collaborate on projects etc. A search engine is a core need to access the internet for this audience and is needed quite frequently - almost every time a"See full answer

    Product Manager
    Product Design
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    6 answers
    +3

    "The question refers to a very specific event: "step into the back for a few minutes, return and see a lot of people waiting"... I might try to clarify goals and scenario: Before I stepped back, there were no ppl waiting? If so, we might be talking about a very specific, even uncommon scenario, in which optimizations for the complete serving system in the long term might not be needed. Maybe they even arrived all together and this is expected behavior. Are people waiting for something specif"

    Alfredo M. - "The question refers to a very specific event: "step into the back for a few minutes, return and see a lot of people waiting"... I might try to clarify goals and scenario: Before I stepped back, there were no ppl waiting? If so, we might be talking about a very specific, even uncommon scenario, in which optimizations for the complete serving system in the long term might not be needed. Maybe they even arrived all together and this is expected behavior. Are people waiting for something specif"See full answer

    Analytical
    Execution
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    1 answer

    "int reverse(int x) { int rev = 0; bool isNegative = false; if(x 0){ int r = x % 10; rev = rev * 10 + r; x = x / 10; } if(isNegative){ return -rev; } return rev; } `"

    Nilay B. - "int reverse(int x) { int rev = 0; bool isNegative = false; if(x 0){ int r = x % 10; rev = rev * 10 + r; x = x / 10; } if(isNegative){ return -rev; } return rev; } `"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +1 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    Add answer
    Product Manager
    Artificial Intelligence
    +1 more
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    4 answers
    +1

    "#simple solution 1.firstly find the node in the bst (O(logn) time complexity it take) 2.now removing the node consists of 3 cases: 1.if the node is leaf (no children): (keep track of parent and do) parent.left or parent.right=NULL simply remove the node () 2.if(has one child) replace the node with its child 3.if has both childs we replace the node with either inorder predesor(max of left tree)or inorder succesor and remove the node wh"

    Sambangi C. - "#simple solution 1.firstly find the node in the bst (O(logn) time complexity it take) 2.now removing the node consists of 3 cases: 1.if the node is leaf (no children): (keep track of parent and do) parent.left or parent.right=NULL simply remove the node () 2.if(has one child) replace the node with its child 3.if has both childs we replace the node with either inorder predesor(max of left tree)or inorder succesor and remove the node wh"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Coding
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    2 answers

    "Clarify: User experience improvements or revenue based improvements for the company? (Assumed UX) Can it be hardware or must it be software? (assumed I have the choice) Position: My favorite product is Airbnb. It's an app that let's people list their home for short term rental and then let's guests book those homes (or rooms) to stay in. It's used primarily for vacations but people all over the world now use it for business or even longer term stays. It's idea was pretty revolutionary a"

    Joel A. - "Clarify: User experience improvements or revenue based improvements for the company? (Assumed UX) Can it be hardware or must it be software? (assumed I have the choice) Position: My favorite product is Airbnb. It's an app that let's people list their home for short term rental and then let's guests book those homes (or rooms) to stay in. It's used primarily for vacations but people all over the world now use it for business or even longer term stays. It's idea was pretty revolutionary a"See full answer

    Product Manager
    Product Design
  • "First, I'd like to ask some clarifying questions and try to narrow down the scope of this question. Among them I would like to ask: Are we looking to optimize for a specific goal or metric? Eg: we want more users/queries or are we looking to increase revenue? Are we testing over a specific aspect of Bing? EG: UI, search quality results, recommendation engine, etc. Duration and size of the test. Available resources or constraints (teams, technology, budget) Now, to ass"

    Alfredo M. - "First, I'd like to ask some clarifying questions and try to narrow down the scope of this question. Among them I would like to ask: Are we looking to optimize for a specific goal or metric? Eg: we want more users/queries or are we looking to increase revenue? Are we testing over a specific aspect of Bing? EG: UI, search quality results, recommendation engine, etc. Duration and size of the test. Available resources or constraints (teams, technology, budget) Now, to ass"See full answer

    Technical Program Manager
    Analytical
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    3 answers

    "Clarification questions - Assumption: Blind person - Generally aware about what an ATM machine is and how it works. Markets - US market and think about global expansion later Regulatory, Financial companies approval - We have agreement from the regulators and financial companies about the merits and we don’t see any kind of concerns from these companies Goal - Part of the company's social initiatives - Positive word of mouth - increase customer base Users - **Blind users with no other disabi"

    Vijay S. - "Clarification questions - Assumption: Blind person - Generally aware about what an ATM machine is and how it works. Markets - US market and think about global expansion later Regulatory, Financial companies approval - We have agreement from the regulators and financial companies about the merits and we don’t see any kind of concerns from these companies Goal - Part of the company's social initiatives - Positive word of mouth - increase customer base Users - **Blind users with no other disabi"See full answer

    Product Manager
    Product Design
  • Microsoft logoAsked at Microsoft 
    10 answers
    +7

    "Honestly, In addition to having the right expertise and skills required for this job, I am really looking forward to being part of this organisation’s journey. I am really confident that I will really exceed your expectations in achieving both mine and the company’s goals. I have worked with different teams in different capacities, managed a team of engineers successfully from very early part of my career and that has made me a very easy person to work with. I get things done easily. I am passio"

    Piyush D. - "Honestly, In addition to having the right expertise and skills required for this job, I am really looking forward to being part of this organisation’s journey. I am really confident that I will really exceed your expectations in achieving both mine and the company’s goals. I have worked with different teams in different capacities, managed a team of engineers successfully from very early part of my career and that has made me a very easy person to work with. I get things done easily. I am passio"See full answer

    Sales Representative
    Behavioral
    +3 more
Showing 81-100 of 263
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