The interview process is very long , and it depends on various teams . Some teams gives Codililty test as a first round and some teams have a telephonic interview as a first round.
I had a telephonic interview as first round 30min, which was okay standard Banking questions on Multi threading and Concurrency .Some problem solving questions
The next round was face to face interview .I had heard so much about MS , and may be I was expecting too much from it . I went to their office which was like any other banking office , cubicles stuffed with people (not laughing , or smiling or not talking to anyone , mostly on calls) .Overall very dull depressing and monotonous.
Then started the 4 hours long interview. I knew this is their standard process so I ate my lunch properly before the interview, because within this 4 hours you will not get a break .
And I found this really annoying that MS being such a big giant and brand label should be more courteous to the candidates or frankly they should change this torturous process of the interview. I was offered coffee and water , but I still feel some light snacks should be there.
My interview was done by 3 people first round was okay , second round was bad , there was a coding excersice which I was not able to do , infact I knew at that particular moment that I am going to be rejected , but then again their was 2 more rounds and in the end I was rejected.
Ideally they should have send me home after the second round and should not have wasted their and my time as well .
By the end of the last round I was so much exhausted that I didn't even cared to answer any further questions , I just wanted to leave.
I would highly recommend to change this interview pattern . I usually prefer taking break after every 2 hours and a 4 hour long interview is a complete no no.
Also they made me right code on a notepad , which I find very irritating , as when you write code eclipse or Intelij you get used to the shortcuts and your programming style changes . If you make a mistake you can debug and resolve . Its stupid to write code on Notepad unless you are expecting a candidate to be java compiler and debugger in himself