Microsoft SWE Internship Interview Experience (2025) | Beyond DSA
If you’re preparing for software engineering internship interviews, chances are you’ve heard the same advice countless times: practice DSA, solve LeetCode problems, and repeat.
And while there’s no denying the importance of DSA, my Microsoft SWE internship interview experience was a little different.
Unlike what you might expect from the numerous interview experiences available online, my interviews were not just about solving coding problems. They involved a mix of computer science fundamentals, technical skills, project discussions, previous internship experience, and even high-level design concepts.
If you’re preparing for Microsoft or any other software engineering internship, I hope my experience helps you understand why being able to explain what you’ve built and understanding the fundamentals behind it can be just as important as practicing DSA.
A little about me
Hey, I’m Nayan Jindal, a Computer Science student at NSUT, Delhi. Over the past few years, I’ve explored software development through projects, hackathons, open-source contributions, and my internship at Mahindra Logistics.
While DSA has always been an important part of my preparation, my Microsoft interview experience taught me that there’s much more to interviews than just solving coding problems.
A few things I learned
- Quality over quantity
You don’t necessarily need to solve hundreds of LeetCode problems. Focus on understanding concepts, recognizing patterns, and building strong fundamentals. Don’t neglect your projects and internship experiences either.
2. Yes, luck matters!
Sometimes, you get questions you’ve practiced before; other times, you encounter something completely unexpected. Luck can play a role, but preparation and the ability to think through unfamiliar problems matter just as much.
Keep learning, keep applying, and don’t let rejections stop you. You never know which opportunity will work out!
The Microsoft Recruitment Process
The recruitment process consisted of an online assessment followed by two interview rounds, both conducted on the same day.
Online Assessment
Everyone in my college with a CGPA above 7 was eligible to sit for the assessment. The OA was conducted on HackerRank, with a 1.5-hour duration and a 2-hour window to attempt it.
There were two coding questions: one based on subsequences and another involving graph traversal using DFS/BFS.
I managed to solve both in around 40 minutes.
To my surprise, I received an interview invitation on my personal email on July 11, along with a form asking for my preferred teams.
We had to select our top three choices from around ten options. I chose Azure Cloud, Azure Cloud Infrastructure, and Search, Assistance and Azure AI.
Interestingly, I eventually got allocated to a team that wasn’t even listed among my preferences!
We were then informed that the interviews would take place online on July 14.
Preparing in Just Two Days
With barely two days left, I reached out to seniors on LinkedIn who had interned at Microsoft the previous year, asking them what I should prioritize.
Most recommended Striver’s A2Z DSA Sheet, followed by CS fundamentals, particularly OOP, OS, DBMS, and Computer Networks. They also emphasized revising projects, previous internships, and hackathon experiences.
Round 1: Technical Interview (11 AM | 1 Hour)
My first interview was with a Senior Engineer from Hyderabad.
- We started with introductions. During mine, I mentioned that I’d been on GitHub since 2017. The interviewer seemed genuinely surprised by this and showed interest in it, which made for an interesting start to the conversation.
- We then moved on to my internship at Mahindra Logistics, where I explained my work in detail and answered a few behavioral questions. Having a crisp introduction and preparing behavioral answers using the STAR method can really help.
- Next, we discussed my project, SUDHAAR, including questions about the project and team coordination.
- This was followed by a few CS fundamentals questions and, towards the end, a DSA question involving a basic mathematical concept related to a binary summation algorithm, along with a few follow-ups.
The interview lasted around an hour.
Round 2: Managerial + Technical Interview (4 PM | ~1 Hour)
After my first interview, there was a wait of around 1.5 hours before the coordinator informed us in the group that my second round was scheduled for 4 PM.
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This round was conducted by an interviewer(Manager) sitting in a conference room at Microsoft’s Hyderabad office. Healready had my resume open, so we jumped straight into the discussion after introductions.
- We started with questions about my technical skills, including JavaScript, TypeScript, MongoDB, and a few other technologies mentioned on my resume.
- Next, we moved to SUDHAAR. I was asked to explain the overall system design, and when I mentioned Kafka, the discussion shifted towards a few High-Level Design (HLD) concepts.
- After that, we discussed my internship at Mahindra Logistics in considerable detail. I was asked several questions about my work, but I can’t share those specifics due to NDA restrictions.
- Towards the end, the interviewer asked whether I used any competitive programming platforms. I was then given a mathematical coding problem to solve in O(1).
- The problem was simple: given a numeric string, repeatedly sum its digits until only a single digit remains.
For example:
- Input:
"28" - First sum: (2 + 8 = 10)
- Second sum: (1 + 0 = 1)
- Output:
1
I solved it and answered a few follow-up questions from the interviewer.
Unlike Round 1, which was conducted on HackerRank, I could use my IDE of choice for this round. I opted for Sublime Text.
The interview lasted approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes. Overall, it felt like a deep dive into my technical skills, projects, and previous internship experience rather than a round focused solely on DSA.
The Result 🎉
After both interviews, I was obviously curious and a little nervous about the outcome.
Then, around 8 PM that evening, the results were announced. Microsoft had selected 9 students from my college, and seeing my name on that list was an incredible feeling!
It was a day full of uncertainty, back-to-back interviews, and a lot of waiting, but everything had finally worked out.
The Offer Letter
Fast-forward to September 2, when I finally received my Microsoft internship offer letter.
My allotted domain was Healthcare, and my location was Pune. Honestly, this came as a surprise because neither was what I had initially expected when filling out my team preferences.
It was a reminder that sometimes, the opportunities you end up getting can be quite different from what you originally imagined.
But that’s a story for another day. :)
A few tips from my experience:
- Don’t prepare only for DSA. Revise your CS fundamentals, know your projects inside out, and be ready to explain the technical decisions you made.
- Your resume is your responsibility. Anything you mention can become a question, so never add something you cannot confidently explain.
- Be honest when you don’t know something. Instead of bluffing, explain what you do know and try to reason your way towards an answer.
- Communication matters. Make your thought process clear, listen carefully to hints, and treat the interview as a technical discussion rather than an exam.
- Don’t underestimate your previous experiences. Internships, hackathons, and personal projects can give interviewers plenty to explore beyond coding questions.
- Most importantly, keep going. Rejections are part of the process, and one bad interview doesn’t define your abilities. Keep learning and applying because you never know which opportunity will work out!
All the best to everyone preparing for internship season. Hope you crack your dream opportunity soon! :)
If you found this article helpful or have a different interview experience to share, feel free to leave a comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter, always happy to connect and discuss tech, internships, and career experiences.
