What topics are tested in Microsoft SDE-1 interviews?

Microsoft SDE-1 interviews test: Behavioral, Communication, Arrays, Strings, Hash Maps, Sliding Window, Graphs, Trees.

Does Microsoft SDE-1 have a system design round?

No, Microsoft SDE-1 does not include a system design round. The focus is on DSA and coding.

Microsoft

Q: How many rounds are there in Microsoft SDE-1 interviews?

Microsoft SDE-1 typically has 4–5 rounds. Microsoft SDE-1 interviews start with a Codility online assessment (2 medium problems, 90 min), then a 4-round loop mixing DSA and a hiring manager discussion. Expect sliding window, trees, and graph problems. The bar is clean communicative code and Growth Mindset behavioral depth — not just arriving at the correct answer.

Tech · Redmond, WA

Microsoft builds Windows, Azure, and Office — one of the world's largest enterprise software and cloud companies.

Related Companies

Rounds: 4–5 rounds
Focus: DSA + Coding
System Design: No
Timeline: 2–3 weeks to offer

Role:

Rounds 1–2 are fully visible · Round 3+ unlocked with a free account

Recruiter Screen

Round 1 of 4Behavioral / HM

30 min

BehavioralCommunication

Resume walkthrough and level-fit confirmation. The recruiter is gatekeeping the loop, not evaluating your algorithms. They will ask one or two warm-up CS questions to confirm you can hold a technical conversation, then explain the loop structure. This round often decides whether you get SDE-1 or SDE-2 track — scope your projects accordingly.

Easy

What to expect

Walk me through your most impactful project — what did you own vs. what did the team own?
Why Microsoft? Be specific — 'I use Teams every day and have opinions on its notification model' beats generic answers
CS warm-up: 'What is the difference between a process and a thread, and when would a thread be preferable?'
Logistics gate: start date, relocation, compensation band alignment before the loop is scheduled

Tip: Pick one Microsoft product — Teams, Azure Portal, VS Code, Xbox Game Pass — and have a genuine critique ready. Recruiters notice when candidates have clearly never used the product they claim to be passionate about.

Coding Round 1

Round 2 of 4DSA / Coding

60 min

ArraysStringsHash MapsSliding Window

One interviewer, 1–2 problems in 60 minutes. The OA already tested your fundamentals; this round probes whether you can translate that to communicative, readable code. Microsoft uses Codility or a shared coding doc — no IDE autocomplete. Arrays and strings dominate the first problem. The second problem typically involves a HashMap or sliding window. Partial credit is real but only if your thinking was audible.

Medium

What to expect

e.g., 'Given a string and a pattern, find all anagram start positions' — sliding window + character frequency map, same pattern used in a Teams search-as-you-type autocomplete feature
e.g., 'Longest substring without repeating characters' — classic warm-up that trips candidates who jump to O(n²) without considering the two-pointer approach
Follow-up: 'Your HashMap uses O(n) space. Can you bound it to O(1)?' — yes, if the alphabet is fixed (26 chars or ASCII 128)
Trap: not testing empty string, single-character input, or all-duplicate characters — Microsoft interviewers explicitly ask you to walk through edge cases before finalizing

Practice on KnowEase.AI

DSA Practice — Sliding Window →DSA Practice — Arrays →

Coding Round 2

Round 3 of 4DSA / Coding

60 min

GraphsTreesBFS/DFSRecursion

Difficulty steps up to Medium–Hard. Graphs and trees are extremely common — Microsoft's products (Azure service meshes, Teams org graphs, OneDrive directory trees) give interviewers natural framing for these. Expect one meaty problem with follow-up constraints rather than two separate problems. Silent coding for more than 5 minutes is flagged negatively regardless of whether you get the right answer.

What to expect

e.g., 'Clone a graph with random pointers' — BFS + HashMap to track visited nodes; the same pattern mirrors how Teams replicates conversation state across datacenters
e.g., 'Word Ladder' — BFS on implicit graph, ask for alphabet size to determine branching factor before coding
e.g., 'Recover a Binary Tree from Preorder Traversal' — LeetCode Hard that appeared in multiple 2024 SDE-1 reports; requires careful recursion with index tracking
Follow-up trap: 'What if the graph is very large and doesn't fit in memory?' — most candidates freeze; the right answer involves streaming BFS with disk-backed adjacency lists
Must state both time O(V+E) and space O(V) complexity and explain why the space bound holds

Full details unlocked with a free account

Hiring Manager Round

Round 4 of 4Behavioral / HM

45 min

BehavioralGrowth MindsetProject Discussion

The Growth Mindset round. This is where SDE-1 offers get killed most often. The HM is not looking for a perfect STAR story — they are calibrating whether you're a 'learn-it-all' (Satya Nadella's phrase) or a 'know-it-all'. Failure questions here are weighted higher than at most other companies. Expect a light design question to check whether you can hold a technical conversation without a whiteboard.

What to expect

Growth Mindset probe: 'Tell me about a time you failed at something technical — what specifically did you do differently afterward?' — vague answers like 'I learned from it' are disqualifying
Growth Mindset probe: 'Describe a time you received critical feedback from a peer or manager. What was your immediate reaction, and what changed in your behavior?'
Light design: 'How would you design a simple key-value store that survives a server restart?' — expect follow-up on durability, not just in-memory HashMap
Product curiosity: 'Which Microsoft product do you use most and what is one thing you would change about its architecture or UX?' — candidates who say 'I don't use any Microsoft products' rarely get offers

Full details unlocked with a free account

Questions — coming soon.

Company Guide — coming soon.

About Microsoft SDE-1 Interviews

Microsoft SDE-1 interviews start with a Codility online assessment (2 medium problems, 90 min), then a 4-round loop mixing DSA and a hiring manager discussion. Expect sliding window, trees, and graph problems. The bar is clean communicative code and Growth Mindset behavioral depth — not just arriving at the correct answer.

See interview loops for other companies:

Amazon Uber Flipkart Razorpay Walmart Coupang Rippling Rubrik Target

Start your Microsoft SDE-1 prep plan

Practice the exact topics tested in each round — DSA, system design, SQL, and LLD.

Start free →