Microsoft Engineering Manager Interview (questions, process, prep)

Microsoft engineering manager interviews are really challenging. The questions are difficult, specific to Microsoft, and cover a wide range of topics.

One thing that differentiates Microsoft EM interviews from most Big Tech EM interviews is that they involve hands-on coding. So if you're rusty, that's one skill you'll need to brush up on. 

More importantly, you want to prepare well for your behavioral interviews. You need to prepare stories that demonstrate your impact and that you can execute at the scale Microsoft operates at. You also need to show that even at your level, you have a growth mindset that allows you to keep learning and growing.

The good news is that the right preparation can make a big difference and can help you land a job as an engineering manager at Microsoft. To help you get there, we’ve put together the ultimate guide below. 

Here's an overview of what we'll cover:

• Role and salary
• Interview process and timeline
• Example questions
  • Behavioral questions
  • System design questions
  • Coding questions
• Interview tips

• How to prepare

Click here to practice mock interviews with top engineering manager interview coaches

1. Microsoft engineering manager role and salary↑

Before we cover your software engineering manager interviews at Microsoft, let's take a quick look at the role itself (alternatively, feel free to skip straight to the sections on the interview process or interview questions).

1.1 What does a Microsoft engineering manager do?

As an engineering manager at Microsoft, you'll combine technical expertise with leadership to drive major projects forward.

You’ll be responsible for setting the engineering vision, technical strategy, and priorities of your team/domain. You'll manage engineers across diverse teams and locations, handle substantial budgets, and coordinate large-scale projects globally. You’ll also need to collaborate with cross-functional teams and manage stakeholders at the executive level.

Microsoft is divided into 3 engineering groups, namely: Cloud and Artificial Intelligence, Experiences and Devices, Gaming, and Technologies and Research. The types of questions you’ll get will depend on the domain of the team you’re joining.

Mark (FAANG EM interview coach) emphasizes that engineering managers' role in shaping the direction of projects relies heavily on trust in their technical skills. To earn this trust, you need to demonstrate technical expertise by:

• getting hands-on (e.g., writing code, getting stuck in on designing architecture, being on-call)
• asking critical questions (e.g., how will a proposed design address a specific requirement?)
• representing team technical architecture in a concise way to stakeholders

One important thing to know about Microsoft is that, according to Manisha (ex-Microsoft engineering leader), it now considers AI fluency a baseline requirement for most roles, including engineering managers. So even if your role does not explicitly state AI knowledge and experience as a required/preferred qualification, it’s best to treat it as such.

1.2 How much does a Microsoft engineering manager make?

Microsoft EMs are very well compensated. They make 22% more than the average engineering manager in the US. However, Microsoft is far from the highest-paying company for the role. As of 2026, Google and Meta are still the top-paying companies for EMs based on Levels.fyi data.

Here’s a summary of the base pay and total compensation for Microsoft EMs, based on August 2026 Levels.fyi reports.

To be considered for an engineering manager role, you'd usually need around 3+ years of technical leadership experience plus 5+ years as a software engineer or 8+ years of software engineering experience.

To be considered for the GM/VP level, you'll need to have worked in engineering for 15 to 20 years and have experience in leading engineering organizations. 

Ultimately, how you do in your interviews will determine what level you’re considered for. That’s why hiring one of our Microsoft EM interview coaches can provide such a significant return on investment.

Remember, compensation packages are always negotiable, even at Microsoft. However, they do have rigid pay bands based on your level. 

So if you do get an offer, do your research before negotiating. Better still, practice with a salary negotiation expert so they can help you negotiate properly and effectively.

2. Microsoft engineering manager interview process and timeline↑

What's the interview process and timeline at Microsoft for the engineering manager role? It usually takes three to eight weeks and follows the steps below. 

2.1 What interviews to expect

1. Resume screen
2. Recruiter phone screen (30-45 min)
3. First-round interviews (1-2 calls, 45-60 min each)
4. Onsite interviews (4-6 rounds, 45-60 min each)
5. As appropriate interview (1 round)

Now, let’s take a look at each of these steps in more detail.

2.1.1 Resume screen

First, recruiters will look at your resume and assess if your experience matches the open position. This is the most competitive step in the process, as millions of candidates do not make it past this stage.

You can use this free EM resume guide to help tailor your resume to the position you’re targeting. 

And if you’re looking for expert feedback, you can also get input from our team of expert tech recruiters, who will cover what achievements to focus on (or ignore), how to fine-tune your bullet points, and more.

2.1.2 Recruiter phone screen

In most cases, the interview process at Microsoft starts with an HR recruiter call. The objective of this conversation is to understand more about your background and to confirm that you've got a chance of getting the job at all. 

You can expect behavioral questions such as "Tell me about yourself," "Why Microsoft?" or "Tell me about your current day-to-day as an engineering manager."

At this stage, one thing you should clarify is the level you’re being considered for. According to Philip (ex-Microsoft TPM), interview expectations vary significantly by level and team, even for the same job title. In some cases, strong candidates fail simply because they were evaluated at the wrong level. So it’s best to check with your recruiter before you get into the rest of the interview process.

If you get past this first HR screen, the recruiter will then help schedule your first-round interview(s). Your recruiter will usually let you know who you are interviewing with and what type of interviews you should expect, and they will share resources to help you prepare.

2.1.3 First-round interviews

Your next interview(s) after talking to the recruiter will be what’s often referred to as "phone screens," although they may take place over video chat. You'll speak to a peer or a potential manager, and they'll ask you a mix of technical and behavioral questions.

In our experience, Microsoft interviewers spend more time on behavioral questions than their counterparts at Meta or Google. So it's worth making sure that you're ready for common behavioral questions (more on that later).

Some candidates only pass one phone screen in order to move on to the onsite round, while others have two: one focused on leadership and management, and the other focused on technical skills. 

Don’t worry, your recruiter will let you know which type of interview you can expect so that you can prepare properly.

2.1.4 Onsite interviews

If you pass the first-round interviews, you’ll be invited onsite for four to six interview rounds that last 45-60 minutes each. 

These interviews may be a mix of one-on-one and panel interviews with people from the team you’re applying to join, including peers, the hiring manager, and sometimes a senior executive. They’re the biggest test for Microsoft engineering manager candidates.

The types of questions you can expect will be a mix of system design, coding, and behavioral questions. Depending on the team you’re joining, you may also get an AI-assisted coding round.

We’ll dig deeper into the questions you can expect in section 3.

2.1.5  AA or ASAPP ("As appropriate") interview

Finally, your last interview will be with a senior executive from Microsoft (e.g., your hiring manager or possibly their boss). This interview is often referred to as the "as appropriate," AA or ASAPP interview because you will only be asked to do that interview if your first three interviews go well. 

If you don't do well in the first three, then you won't get an AA interview, and you won't get an offer.

AA interviewers have two roles. The first one is to ensure that there's no blind spot in your assessment. For instance, if your first three interviewers have established that you meet the technical hiring standards but aren't sure about culture fit, your AA interview will mainly focus on behavioral questions. 

The second role of an AA interviewer is to "sell" the company to you if you did well in previous interviews. The idea here is that Microsoft wants to make sure you'll accept the offer if they decide to make you one.

2.2 What happens after your Microsoft interview↑

2.2.1 Interview assessment

At the end of each interview, your interviewer will grade your performance using a standardized feedback form. Here is some of the information that's contained in the form.

A) Interview notes

Interviewers will file the notes they took during the interview. This usually includes the questions they asked, a summary of your answers, and any additional impressions they had (e.g., communicated ABC well, weak knowledge of XYZ, etc).

B) Competencies assessment

Your interviewer will then grade you on different competencies. They will be trying to determine if you meet the bar or not for each competency they are interested in. 

The exact list of competencies Microsoft looks for varies depending on groups, roles, and levels. But here are some of the main ones that are usually discussed by Microsoft recruiters:

• Passion for technology
• Problem solving
• Analytical ability
• Creativity

C) Hiring recommendation

Each interviewer will give a hiring recommendation at the end of the interview. The different options are along the lines of: "Strong hire," "Hire," "No hire," "Strong no hire."

D) Suggested follow-ups

The feedback forms are accessible to all the interviewers in your loop. And each interviewer can suggest a follow-up topic for your next interview. 

For instance, if you didn't check edge cases during a coding question, your interviewer might flag that with you and also with your next interviewer so they can see if you will apply the feedback.

2.2.2 Application deliberation

Your recruiter is leading the process and taking you from one stage to the next. Here's what happens at each of the stages described above:

• After the first round, your recruiter and hiring manager decide whether to move you to the onsite interviews or not, depending on how well you've done.
• After the onsite, each interviewer files their notes into the internal system, grades you, and makes a hiring recommendation (e.g., "Strong hire," "Hire," "No hire," "Strong no hire"). You usually need to receive a "Hire" grade from all interviewers to get an offer. But in some cases, the AA interviewer and / or hiring manager can decide to hire you even if you got one "No hire."
• If everything goes well, the recruiter will be in touch with an offer, usually within a week of the onsite, but it can sometimes take longer

It's important to note that recruiters and the people who refer you have little influence on the overall process. They can help you get an interview at the beginning, but that's about it.

2. Microsoft engineering manager example interview questions↑

As we mentioned above, you can expect three types of interview questions for an engineering manager role with Microsoft:

• Behavioral questions that assess your past experience, your ability to manage people and projects, and overall culture fit
• System design questions that assess your technical knowledge, your thought process, and your knowledge of architecture and scaling.
• Coding questions that assess your problem-solving skills and test whether you can think in a structured way when it comes to code. In some cases, your coding interview may involve the use of an AI tool of your choice.

In this section, we'll dig deeper into each category to give you a clearer idea of what questions to expect, and we'll also provide example questions that you can practice with. 

The questions we'll list in the next sections are real Microsoft EM interview questions reported on Glassdoor and Blind. We’ve also added some Microsoft software development engineer questions to round out your preparation. 

The questions are categorized and edited in some places to make them easier to understand.

Let’s get started.

3.1 Behavioral questions

As you’re interviewing for a management position, you can expect an emphasis on behavioral questions during the overall interview process. The questions you’ll get will likely focus on your technical leadership experience and culture fit. 

Many candidates fail a Microsoft interview because of a lack of preparation for the behavioral section. The good news is that these questions can be easy to prepare for if you know what to expect.

For technical leadership experience, expect questions about past projects that demonstrate experience that’s relevant to your target role. "At a high level, the focus is on whether you have done a similar job before," Manisha (ex-Microsoft engineering leader) says. 

For culture fit, study Microsoft’s culture and values and find stories that align with them. You specifically want to focus on growth mindset and the "model, coach, and care" value as an EM.

The question topics you’ll get include people leadership, cross-functional influence, and execution at scale. You might also get questions about dealing with re-orgs. 

Practice with these examples.

Here are a few useful resources for your behavioral interviews as an EM: grokking the EM leadership interview, leadership interview primer, people management interview primer, project management interview primer, and behavioral interview questions.

3.2 System design questions

As Microsoft products have millions of monthly active users, the company's engineers need to be able to design systems that are scalable. So come prepared to answer system design questions.

While other technical questions in the interview process have a single optimal solution, many system design questions take the form of an open-ended discussion.

In most cases, your interviewer will adapt the question to your background. For instance, if you've worked on an API product, they'll ask you to design an API. However, you should be ready to design any type of product or system at a high level.

We've listed some common system design questions that can be found in the Microsoft engineering manager / software development engineer interview reports on Glassdoor or on relevant forums (like the Leetcode forum). Give them a try below. 

Read our guide to system design interviews to get more practice questions and a framework to structure your answers.

3.3 Coding questions

Finally, you should come prepared to answer coding questions during your interviews. 

Typically, EMs at Big Tech companies rarely get coding interviews. At Microsoft, EMs are a lot more hands-on, so the inclusion of coding interviews may depend on the role or team. In any case, it’s best to check with your recruiter whether you should expect one.

As of writing, we haven’t found any Microsoft EM candidate reports that mention the use of AI tools. What we have read comes from Microsoft SWE candidates, so it may be fair to assume that it may also be included in the EM interview.

Here’s a quick summary of how coding with AI at a Microsoft interview works, based on this Reddit report:

• You’ll be asked to use any IDE and AI tool you’re comfortable with
• You’ll get a simple LeetCode-style question. You’ll be asked not to copy and paste the whole question into your AI tool.
• You’ll be evaluated on the questions you ask, how you debug, point out errors, and re-prompt to fix the code

The most important thing to keep in mind during your coding/DSA interviews is to assure your interviewer that your technical skills are sharp enough to keep up with and manage your team’s work. So you need to show that you think in a structured way, can write code that's accurate, bug-free, and fast, and have excellent engineering judgment when reviewing code.

To help you refresh your skills, we've taken some of the questions from Microsoft software development engineer interviews and broken them down into subcategories (e.g. arrays / strings, linked lists, graphs / trees, search / Sort, dynamic programming). This way, you can prioritize what to study and practice first.

Check out our coding interview prep guide to brush up on your fundamentals. It includes more example questions and a step-by-step framework to structure your answer. If your recruiter confirms an AI round, read our AI-assisted coding interview guide to learn how to best approach the format.

4. Interviewing tips

You might be an excellent engineer and a great manager, but unfortunately, that’s not necessarily enough to ace your interviews at Microsoft. Interviewing is a skill in itself that you need to learn. 

Let’s look at some key tips to make sure you approach your interviews in the right way.  

4.1 Prioritize behavioral rounds

For senior roles, Philip (ex-Microsoft TPM)  says a common mistake candidates make is spending too much time preparing for coding and system design while underpreparing for behavioral interviews. 

Behavioral rounds carry significant weight at senior levels because a company like Microsoft is looking to assess your leadership, communication, and decision-making skills. 

4.2 Emphasize a growth mindset

Microsoft interviewers explicitly assess candidates for what it calls a growth mindset, i.e., a willingness to embrace challenges, learn from failure, and seek out feedback rather than avoid it

Philip saw this firsthand from the hiring manager side. He describes a culture where being open to feedback and changing your approach based on new information is seen as a strength, not a weakness.

Be sure to have a couple of stories that demonstrate this value, and always include what you’ve learned from both successes and failures.

4.3 Ask clarifying questions and state assumptions

Often, the questions you’ll be asked will be ambiguous, so make sure you ask questions that can help you clarify and understand the problem. 

Similarly, you need to explicitly state assumptions where instructions are unclear, and check with your interviewer to see if those assumptions are reasonable. 

4.4 Think out loud

You need to walk your interviewer through your thought process before you start coding or designing a system. Your interviewer may give you hints about whether you’re on the right track or not. 

4.5 Get comfortable with coding on various mediums

Microsoft now typically asks interviewees to code in CoderPad. But this can vary, it could be on a physical whiteboard or a virtual one. You may also get an AI-assisted coding round. Check with your recruiter what it will be and practice it a lot. 

The key is to keep your code organized, so your interviewer won’t have difficulty understanding what you’ve written. And don’t forget to talk through your thought process while coding.

4.6 Understand system design expectations

Your system design interviewers will have different expectations of you depending on your seniority.

Because you’re applying for a senior position, you'd be expected to demonstrate awareness of a range of non-functional requirements and create a working design that responds to them.

While a junior might be able to ask, "What are the most important requirements?", a senior engineer needs to make that decision for themselves and then clarify with the interviewer, "Do these requirements match what you're expecting?"

4.7 Adapt to follow-up questions

Interviewers will ask follow-up questions, whether it’s a coding, system design, or behavioral interview. So don’t be alarmed if your interviewer asks them. 

Listen carefully to the way your interviewer is asking these questions, as there will often be a subtle clue about what they’re looking to assess from the next part of your answer.

Some of the time, follow-up questions are a way for your interviewer to steer you in a particular direction. So don’t hesitate to follow them. In fact, listen actively for hints. 99% of interviewers have good intentions, and they're trying to help you.

4.8 Be honest and authentic

Be genuine in your responses. Microsoft interviewers appreciate authenticity and honesty. If you faced challenges or setbacks, discuss how you improved and learned from them.

5. How to prepare for your Microsoft EM interview

Now that you know what questions to expect, let's focus on how to prepare. Here are the four most important things you can do to prepare for your Microsoft engineering manager interviews.

5.1 Learn about Microsoft's culture

Most candidates fail to do this. But before investing tens of hours preparing for an interview at Microsoft, you should take some time to make sure it's actually the right company for you.

Microsoft is prestigious, and it's therefore tempting to ignore this step completely, but the prestige of the company, in itself, won't make you happy day-to-day. It's the type of work and the people you work with that will.

If you know engineers who work at Microsoft (or used to), talk to them to understand what the culture is like. 

In addition, we would also recommend reading the following resources:

• Microsoft's growth mindset culture (by Microsoft)
• How Microsoft’s growth mindset drives innovation (by i4cp)
• Microsoft strategy teardown (by CB Insights)
• Microsoft vision and mission analysis (by Panmore Institute)
• Microsoft’s culture and cultural traits (by Panmore Institute)
• Microsoft annual reports (by Microsoft)
• Microsoft interview process (by IGotAnOffer)

5.2 Practice by yourself

As mentioned above, you'll have to answer three types of questions at Microsoft: behavioral, system design, and coding. The first step of your preparation should be to brush up on these different types of questions and to practice answering them by yourself.

5.2.1 Behavioral interview preparation

For behavioral interviews, we recommend consulting our leadership, people management, and program/project management primers for tech interviews, as well as learning our step-by-step SPSIL method for answering this type of question. 

Here’s a summary:

Write down and practice your answers to the common behavioral questions we have listed in the previous section using this method.

5.2.2 System design interview preparation

For system design interviews, Microsoft does not give specific recommendations. But Amazon does, and the approach they outline in the video below is quite helpful.

Here is a summary of what you should do. For a complete framework and an example answer, consult our article on how to answer system design questions.

We'd also recommend studying our system design interview questions and prep guide, which digs into this method in more detail. It also provides several example questions with solutions. 

5.2.3 Coding interview preparation

For coding interviews, we recommend getting used to the step-by-step approach recommended by Microsoft in the video below.

 Here is a summary of the approach recommended by Microsoft:

To practice solving questions, we recommend using our articles, 73 data structure questions and 71 algorithms questions, which have links to high-quality answers to each problem. They are organized by type of data structure or algorithm as well as by difficulty level.

Past candidates report that easy and medium-level difficulty questions are sufficient for the interviews. Don't forget to practice questions on a whiteboard or a simple text editor instead of an IDE.

Interviewing for an EM role at another company? You may also want to check out our other  EM interview guides:

• Meta engineering manager interview guide
• Google engineering manager interview guide
• Apple engineering manager interview guide
• Netflix engineering manager interview guide
• Uber engineering manager interview guide
• DoorDash engineering manager interview guide
• Anthropic engineering manager interview guide
• Stripe engineering manager interview guide
• Engineering manager interview prep guide

However, by yourself, you can’t simulate thinking on your feet or the pressure of performing in front of a stranger. Plus, there are no unexpected follow-up questions and no feedback.

That’s why many candidates try to practice with friends or peers.

5.3 Practice with peers

If you have friends or peers who can do mock interviews with you, that's an option worth trying. It’s free, but be warned, you may come up against the following problems:

• It’s hard to know if the feedback you get is accurate
• They’re unlikely to have insider knowledge of interviews at your target company
• On peer platforms, people often waste your time by not showing up

For those reasons, many candidates skip peer mock interviews and go straight to mock interviews with an expert. 

5.4 Practice with experienced EM interviewers

In our experience, practicing real interviews with experts who can give you company-specific feedback makes a huge difference.

Find a Microsoft engineering manager interview coach so you can:

• Test yourself under real interview conditions
• Get accurate feedback from a real expert
• Build your confidence
• Get company-specific insights
• Learn how to tell the right stories, better.
• Save time by focusing your preparation

Landing a job at a big tech company often results in a $50,000 per year or more increase in total compensation. In our experience, three or four coaching sessions worth ~$500 make a significant difference in your ability to land the job. That’s an ROI of 100x!