I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Charlotte, NC) in Nov 2015
Interview
Relatively laid back and conversational for a high-profile company like Microsoft. They will fly you out to one of 4 locations (Redmond, Charlotte, Dallas, or Fargo) for a pre-event dinner the night before at a nice steakhouse. The food was great, but unfortunately you spend most of your time getting to know the other candidates and Microsoft employees so there isn't too much time to enjoy the buffet style food. This was very helpful and eased my nerves as everyone at Microsoft was friendly and easy to speak with. Left dinner around 9, went back to hotel to glance over my resume one last time and get a full night sleep before needing to be at the office for 4 hours of interviews at 7:30 the next morning.
You are interviewing for the Support Engineer OR Premier Field Engineer role, and it is my understanding that Microsoft will determine which role you would be a better fit for and extend you an offer for that role. From my understanding, the main difference is that Support Engineers need more technical depth while PFE's need more technical breadth and spend the majority of their working hours traveling and visiting customers on site.
As for the interview - Microsoft is genuinely interested in finding out if you will be a good fit for the company, so relax and be yourself. The 3 month MACH training program all PFE and SE new hires go through is apparently pretty tech-intensive and very thorough, so the interview seemed to be less technical and more behavioral as Microsoft believes it can teach any intelligent, driven individual how to succeed in the role.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
In reflecting upon your college career, name one way you failed, one way you succeeded, and one thing you did differently than others.
"Give me an example of some work you have done in *insert coding language here?" - only relevant if you have specifically listed that language on your resume. They won't ask you about a skill/language you don't claim to know.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Dallas, TX) in Oct 2015
Interview
One behavioral phone interview and was then flown out to Dallas for an on-site interview. Most questions were behavioral there as well. I would estimate there were about 20 of us in the morning, and then there were another group for the afternoon. Each candidate had four separate interviews. Note that this was for a university graduate position.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Microsoft (Bengaluru) in Nov 2011
Interview
HR calls you
Interviews are scheduled over 3-4 weeks, They include 2 technical, 1 language proficiency, 2 managerial and 1 HR round
Technical rounds are generally taken by a technical lead or an SME of a team where the vacancy is.
The technical interviews are more targeted towards understanding the troubleshooting approach.
Since you work with customers from USA over the phone, you have your language skills assessed.
Managerial rounds are to test the behavior of the candidate to check if they are in line with Microsoft values.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
How would you handle a situation should you be stuck on a Sev A ticket with no help.