Finally Got SWE Intern offer at Microsoft for Summer 2026 🥹

I am from a tier 1 Govt college but not an IIT. My branch is CS.

600+ applied 40 shortlisted via OA (2 medium Qs: binary search & prefix mapping)

Interview Rounds:

Round 1 – 9 AM: Started with a brief intro and then a 10–15 min deep dive into OS & Computer Architecture — questions around paging, context switching, cache mapping, etc. Then came 2 DSA questions (medium-hard level) one on Trees (path-based logic) and another on Linked List (tricky pointer manipulation). Had to code on Notepad 💀 — no syntax help, no autocomplete. Messed up the first one a bit but stayed calm, debugged, and solved both in time.

Round 2: Taken by a senior and quite experienced person from MS — didn’t care much about coding initially. Started with a deep discussion on OOPs — covered the 4 pillars, multithreading, and real-world design patterns like Singleton and Factory. Then moved into OS concepts — especially around CPU scheduling algorithms and memory management techniques like segmentation and paging. Ended the round with a graph question (medium level) — implemented it and got constructive feedback on improving my approach and space usage.

Real Talk: Got rejected at Flipkart GRiD (LMAO) and Goldman Sachs — not even shortlisted 💀 Rejections ≠ failure. Just keep grinding.

Tips: DSA is non-negotiable, but fundamentals (OS, OOPs, DBMS) give you confidence Fundamentals are needed for Microsoft, Google often ignore them and just ask DSA.

Speak slow, explain approach before coding

Good profiles help: 1900+ Leetcode (top 5%) | CF Specialist

Use Striver SDE and A2Z Sheet as your Bible

Ask anything! Happy to help

Hey! Saw other people make similar timeline posts that helped me out, so I wanted to share my experience with the timeline for the 2022 Microsoft SWE intern process. Here is the overview of dates:

7/14 - Applied to this job posting with a referral (day after it opened lol)

8/5 - Received interview for initial recruiter phone screen

8/12 - Completed initial phone screen (no codility, just a phone call). All you need is this repo to prep.

8/27 - Received invite for final interviews.

9/10 - Completed 2 x 45 min final interviews. Each had a couple of behaviorals and 1 technical question. LC Microsoft explore card is good prep, I got no more than LC med. I got through all of the implementation and analysis during my first interview, and felt really good about it. During the second interview, I only drew up a game plan and analyzed my algo, but had back and forth with the interviewer about small improvements until I had written out pseudocode of the optimal solution. Left that second interview feeling okay-ish.

9/17 - Offer extended. The action center portal for interviews changed to "completed" under a new job #, offer was received midday