Microsoft internship interview questions

If you’re like most students we talk to, you want to know what to expect during your interviews and what we’re looking for in you. At Microsoft, interviews are a two-way street. We want to get to know you, but we also want to be sure you walk away knowing us too.

• You’ll meet with your potential coworkers and team; you’ll typically meet for up to an hour each with three to six people during your interviews.
• In most cases, you’ll interview with people on two teams within a single product group or two different teams working on entirely different products. We try to find the best fit based on the team's business needs and your own skills and interests.
• You’ll have a chance to look around. We'll make sure you have time to see campus and get a feel for the area that may soon become your home.
• Be open about your skills. Be upfront about what you do know and what you do not. If you don’t have the exact skill that an interviewer asks you about, don’t panic: part of the interview process is learning and dealing with ambiguity.
• We’re interested in how your mind works. Be ready to show your thinking and explain how you came up with a solution to a technical issue, design question, or problem-solving puzzle; the process you use to arrive at an answer is even more important to us than the answer itself.
• Interviews are a mix of behavioral-based and technical questions related to the position you are interviewing for. We are not trying to trick you, ask irrelevant questions or make non-data driven assumptions.

What to expect

Technical questions: If appropriate to your area of interest, technical questions will be asked that likely involve a technical discussion of projects you’ve worked on. Don’t be afraid to stand up and write code on the whiteboard, draw your solution, or ask questions for clarification.

Ambiguous situational questions: These questions can be hypothetical ("What would you do?") or reflective ("What have you done?"). They’re asked so you can show us what you’ve got. We need original, creative thinkers, and our interview process is designed to help us find those people. When in doubt, ask for clarification.

Process thinking questions: These invite you to verbalize your thought process as you work through a technical issue, design question, or problem-solving puzzle. Remember, it’s not always the end result we’re looking for, but the process you took to get there and your ability to clearly articulate it to others.

Project questions: Be prepared to talk about the technical and soft skills you demonstrated in previous internships and school projects. Anything you list on your resume is fair game.

Ask lots of questions

Your natural curiosity is one of your biggest assets as a potential hire. Thoughtful, insightful questions will show that you’re serious about making an impact at Microsoft. And if you don’t understand a question, don’t be afraid to ask the interviewer to clarify. Likewise, ask your interviewer about the nature of their work and projects you could potentially work on. We know candidates of your caliber have a lot of career opportunities, so we want you to be sure that a position with us is a great fit for you.

How to prepare

• You don’t need to dress up to impress us. Wear whatever makes you most comfortable. The people interviewing you are likely to be casually dressed, but we understand if you feel more confident in your power suit.
• Make sure you have the fuel and rest you need to stay relaxed and quick on your feet. You may be nervous when you arrive, so while we have food on-site, consider eating a meal beforehand when you’re not quite so nervous.
• Be ready to tell your story and to discuss your strengths, expertise and any experience that appears on your resume.
• Come prepared with 3 to 5 meaningful questions for your interviewers. Questions demonstrate your level of understanding, your interests and your passions—and help you learn about the company. So don’t hold back.

Resume tips

• Summarize your relevant education, experience, and projects. Skip the things that are outdated or irrelevant.
• Highlight your accomplishments in previous jobs or projects, not just your duties or responsibilities. Everyone has job duties; it’s how you approached them and what you accomplished in carrying them out that makes you stand out.
• Show progression. Whether it’s in school, leadership roles or your work, highlight how your experience has helped you grow.
• Talk about related extracurricular or volunteer work. Just because you weren’t paid for it, that doesn’t mean it’s not important!
• Include links to projects you’ve worked on. This gives the recruiter a better idea of how you put your skills into practice.
• It’s okay to use more than one page. That said, be sure your summaries are succinct and relevant—and your most important information appears on the first page.
• Make sure your resume and contact information is completely up-to-date. To be safe, also include non-school contact info so we can reach you on breaks or after graduation.
• Be honest. Paint the best possible picture of yourself, but don’t exaggerate. And proofread for typos and errors—more than once!
• If you send your resume in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx), make sure to turn off "track changes".

Best practices

• When answering your questions, use frameworks, so you can structure your answer in a cohesive manner.
• Be yourself and enjoy the interview.
• Our interviews are less question/answer and more conversational.
• Yes, we want to know how you think and what are you passionate about, but we also want to see your personality.
• Some interviewers like to interrupt and ask questions—go with the flow and don’t panic.
• Know the dress code. A lot of candidates ask whether they should be in their formal interview clothes or dress like Microsofties, so that they can show they know our culture. While very few people at Microsoft wear suits, it’s better to be safe than sorry and dress more conservatively.

Development (engineering)

There are two primary roles within this job family: Software engineering and program management. Read on to find out more.

Software engineering

Software engineering (SWE) roles require coding. Be ready to code, a lot! Brush up on your object oriented languages, as our interviewers love to ask questions related to linked lists, loops, arrays, and pointers, etc. We’ve found the best coders ask a ton of questions before writing code and consider the consequences of every line. Think of the pros and cons of each solution, and once you decide to move ahead with a solution, be ready to explain why you chose that approach. And most importantly, be sure to test your code before you say you’re done!

Before the interview

• Review data structures and algorithms and make sure you know the characteristics of data structures, e.g., when to use them, their time and space complexity, trade-offs, etc.
• Review basic concepts from computer architecture (caches, branch mis-prediction, pipelines, etc.) and operating systems courses.
• Practice working through some coding problems that you haven’t seen before, as this is similar to the technical parts of the interview.
• Think about how you would test mundane items, like calculators or staplers. Be sure to classify your tests (i.e., border cases, common functionality, stress, security, error checking, etc.).
• Look at some code you’ve written in the past, then write a tool to test your code.