I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Zelenograd) in Apr 2013
Interview
2 remote technical interviews (skype, audio only). One with team lead. It was quite difficult, but bearable. Second with SDET 2. It was quite easy.
1 technical interview in office, airplane tickets was paid. Interview was very hard, as for me. 2 hours of continuous questions regarding my technical knowledge and personal qualities.
1 stress interview with technical director. It was the worst one. After that I thought I will never get an offer. I was ready for stress testing, but not in my field of knowledge.
1 formal interview with HR specialist. Pure pleasure.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Mountain View, CA) in Jul 2011
Interview
All questions were technical. I had 3 coding questions and several test questions probing on what I had done. Coding questions included reversing a linked list, inserting into a binary search tree and deleting a node from a binary tree. I was asked to come up with test cases for my code. In addition I was asked to come up with a strategy and test cases for an internet voice calling software product and a toy for a toddler. Overall the interview experience was very positive and interesting.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
There was no unexpected question. There was a lot of expectation and probing in the area of end to end scenarios and integration test strategy for the testing questions.