Microsoft Interview Questions

Microsoft Interview Questions

Practice 213 real Microsoft interview questions for 2026. Covers all top categories — Coding & Algorithms, Behavioral & Leadership, System Design, Machine Learning, ML System Design — across Software Engineer, Data Scientist, Machine Learning Engineer, Product Manager, Technical Program Manager roles. Real questions from actual interviews with detailed solutions. Microsoft interview questions on this page focus heavily on coding and design: expect algorithmic problems, implementation correctness and complexity tradeoffs, and end-to-end system thinking during on-site loops. Interview preparation should combine timed coding drills, low-level and distributed design sketches, and polished STAR narratives that show impact and collaboration. For Software Engineers you’ll see recurring themes like versioned key-value stores, secure Copilot APIs, RAG ranking and retrieval pipelines, CSV/query engines, calendar and meeting-optimizer systems, URL shorteners, and memory/Java/Python management. Data Scientist questions concentrate on SQL aggregation/top-earner queries, classifier design and evaluation, estimating impact without A/B tests, SHAP and precision–recall analysis. Machine Learning Engineers face top-K/top-elements, LLM data quality checks, model selection, caching/merge interval problems, and RAG systems with agentic tools. Product roles emphasize customer obsession, cross-team influence, enterprise process tooling, metrics, and ML pipeline stability.

213 Questions 1 Company08.03.2026
Showing 20 results
Role
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Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer

Determine dictionary-based string segmentation

You are given a string s and a set of tokens dict. Determine whether s can be segmented into a sequence of one or more tokens from dict. If segmentati...

Coding & Algorithms
2
0
56 people solved
Aug 14, 2025
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Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer

Describe background and motivations

Describe background and motivations Behavioral Interview Prompts — Technical/Phone Screen (Software Engineer) Context You are preparing for a technica...

Behavioral & Leadership
8
0
58 people solved
Aug 4, 2025
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Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer

Discuss large language models

Discuss large language models LLMs: Advances, Product Integration, Production Challenges, and Risk Mitigation Context You are interviewing for a Softw...

Machine Learning
3
0
58 people solved
Aug 4, 2025
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Microsoft
Medium
Data Scientist

Explain Deep Learning to a 5-Year-Old Child

Explain Deep Learning to a 5-Year-Old Child Microsoft Phone-Screen: Machine Learning Fundamentals You are interviewing for a machine learning/data sci...

Machine Learning
4
0
45 people solved
Aug 4, 2025
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Microsoft
Medium
Data Scientist

Describe Overcoming Challenges in Machine Learning Projects

Describe Overcoming Challenges in Machine Learning Projects Microsoft Data Scientist Phone Screen — Behavioral Questions (Use STAR) Instructions Use t...

Behavioral & Leadership
5
0
55 people solved
Aug 4, 2025
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Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer

Solve budget queries and shortest path

1) Budgeted purchases with sorted array: You are given an array prices of n positive integers and q budget queries. For each budget B, you may buy ite...

Coding & Algorithms
2
0
49 people solved
Aug 1, 2025
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Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer

Maximize a Product After a Shared XOR

Maximize a Product After a Shared XOR Given positive integers a and b and a bit width n, choose an integer x with 0 <= x < 2**n that maximizes: `text ...

Coding & Algorithms
1
0
11 people solved
May 20, 2026
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Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer Locked

Implement Memory Allocation and In-Memory Records

This question evaluates implementation skills in memory management and in-memory data modeling, covering first-fit allocation semantics, free/merge be...

Coding & Algorithms
1
0
15 people solved
May 7, 2026
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Microsoft
Medium
Machine Learning Engineer

Implement K-Means and Detect Divisible Subarrays

Solve both coding tasks. Part A: Implement K-Means Clustering Implement K-means clustering for a set of points. Given: - points: a list of n points, w...

Coding & Algorithms
1
0
16 people solved
Apr 18, 2026
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Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer

Sort Three Categories In Place

You are given an array items containing only the values 0, 1, and 2, where each value represents a category. Rearrange the array in-place so that all ...

Coding & Algorithms
0
0
8 people solved
Apr 18, 2026
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Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer

Retain Top K Elements

Given a list of integers nums and an integer k, return a new list formed from the original list after removing every element except the k largest elem...

Coding & Algorithms
1
0
12 people solved
Apr 17, 2026
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Microsoft
Medium
Software EngineerSenior+

Implement SQL Table and DNA Ordering

Two independent coding exercises were asked. Solve both. Problem A: CSV-backed in-memory table Build a tiny in-memory relational table initialized fro...

Coding & Algorithms
2
0
27 people solved
Apr 10, 2026
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Microsoft
Hard
Software Engineer Locked

Solve power jumps and graph tour

This pair of problems evaluates algorithmic problem-solving in number representation and combinatorial graph optimization, focusing on competencies in...

Coding & Algorithms
7
0
62 people solved
Apr 8, 2026
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Microsoft
Easy
Data ScientistSenior+ Locked

Write an average-income function

This question evaluates proficiency in data manipulation and basic statistical aggregation, particularly handling missing values and computing average...

Coding & Algorithms
12
0
102 people solved
Apr 1, 2026
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Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer Locked

Answer common graph, grid, and array tasks

This set of problems evaluates algorithmic skills across arrays, graph theory, and grid/matrix traversal—covering sliding-window and contiguous-segmen...

Coding & Algorithms
22
0
205 people solved
Mar 1, 2026
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Microsoft
Hard
Software Engineer

Compute discounted prices and full-price indices

You are given an array prices of length \(n\). Items are sold from left to right, and each item’s final selling price is computed as follows: For item...

Coding & Algorithms
17
0
117 people solved
Mar 1, 2026
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Microsoft
Medium
Data Scientist

Traverse an Org Chart by Level

You are given an organization's reporting structure as a flat list of employee-manager relationships. Exactly one employee is the root (the CEO) and h...

Coding & Algorithms
15
1
138 people solved
Feb 25, 2026
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Microsoft
Medium
Machine Learning Engineer Locked

Implement cache and merge intervals

This question evaluates proficiency in designing and implementing efficient data structures (a fixed-capacity LRU key-value cache) and interval-proces...

Coding & Algorithms
3
0
33 people solved
Feb 23, 2026
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Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer Locked

Implement Calendar, Tokenizer, and Meeting Optimizer

This question evaluates competencies in interval scheduling and overlap detection, custom string tokenization and parsing rules, and combinatorial opt...

Coding & Algorithms
4
0
76 people solved
Feb 22, 2026
Microsoft logo
Microsoft
Medium
Software Engineer Locked

Implement Matrix Move and Logger

This question evaluates array manipulation and in-place algorithm design for handling overlapping submatrix moves, along with data-structure and time-...

Coding & Algorithms
4
0
41 people solved
Feb 22, 2026

Frequently Asked Questions

How hard are Microsoft interview questions for the roles covered on this page?
Microsoft interview questions are rigorous and vary by role and level: expect strong emphasis on coding and algorithmic problem solving for Software Engineer roles, systems and scalability thinking for senior engineers, and a mix of coding, statistics and experimental design for Data Scientist and Machine Learning Engineer roles. Product and program roles focus more on product judgment, execution and cross‑team influence. Difficulty scales with seniority and team scope, and many interviews test production readiness, tradeoff reasoning and measurable impact rather than only theoretical knowledge.
What does the typical Microsoft interview process look like and where do these question types appear?
The common flow starts with a recruiter screen, a technical phone/video screen, then a virtual or onsite loop of four to five interviews and sometimes a final 'As Appropriate' leadership review. Coding & Algorithms rounds predominately assess Software Engineers, System Design appears more for mid/senior levels, Machine Learning and ML System Design rounds target MLEs and Data Scientists, and Behavioral & Leadership evaluations run in every loop. Interview timelines typically span several weeks; the exact mix depends on role, level and the specific team’s product priorities.
How long should I prepare before interviewing at Microsoft and how should I structure that time?
Plan preparation by role: engineers often need six to twelve weeks of focused work, while Data Scientists and MLEs can be ready in four to eight weeks if they balance coding, statistics and model evaluation practice. Product and TPM candidates usually need two to six weeks to assemble clear case studies and practice stakeholder narratives. Start with fundamentals and timed problem practice, add system design and production-readiness review mid-plan, then run full mock loops in the final weeks. Include deliberate practice on explaining tradeoffs, telemetry and impact throughout your preparation.
What are the key technical themes to prioritize for Microsoft interviews by position?
Software Engineers: recurring themes include distributed storage and versioned key-value design, graph algorithms and 'tour' style problems, parser/tokenizer and CSV/query-engine implementation, memory/efficiency considerations and practical services like URL shorteners and calendaring. Data Scientists: focus on metric selection under asymmetric costs, SHAP/feature‑attribution, precision–recall analysis, experiment alternatives to A/B and SQL-style data extraction and aggregation. Machine Learning Engineers: expect LLM/RAG system design, quality checks for labeled/LLM data, precision/recall computation from flaky APIs, caching/merge-interval patterns and rigorous ablation and regularization analysis. Product roles: enterprise process flows, ML pipeline stability and clear north-star metrics.
What standout tips and common pitfalls should I know when preparing for Microsoft interviews?
Standout tips: write production-quality code with clear edge-case handling and complexity justification, explain monitoring, rollout and rollback plans for designs, quantify business impact and use telemetry when describing ML work, and practice crisp STAR stories that show ownership and collaboration. Common pitfalls: solving only the toy version of a problem, ignoring performance or reliability tradeoffs, failing to ask clarifying questions, giving vague evaluation metrics or disregarding data bias and safety in ML discussions, and not tying technical choices back to customer or business outcomes.

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