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Microsoft interview experience India: know your level before the loop
Microsoft India hires at four main levels below senior, and the same loop can end in very different offers. A candidate interviewing for Level 62 can walk away with a 61 offer because of one mixed design round. The last round, the AA round, can also swing things either way. A mock interview with an engineer who knows Microsoft's bar shows you which level you're performing at before the real loop.
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Going for 61 or 62? Book a design + AA round mock
This guide is compiled from candidate reports from Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Noida in 2025 and 2026. These aren't first-person stories, and the practice questions aren't leaked.
Microsoft India interview process at a glance
[[table]]
Stage | 59 / 60 | 61 / 62
Online test | Usually | Sometimes
DSA rounds | 2 to 3 | 1 to 2
LLD | Sometimes | Usually
HLD | Rare | Yes
AA round | Usually | Usually
[[/table]]
Most loops happen in a single day, with three or four rounds back to back. If the early rounds go well, the recruiter schedules the AA round, sometimes on the same day and sometimes a couple of days later. Several candidates say they heard the result within a day of the final round.
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Microsoft levels in India
[[table]]
Level | Title | Typical exp.
59 | Software Engineer | 0 to 1 yrs
60 | Software Engineer | 1 to 3 yrs
61 | Software Engineer II | 3 to 5 yrs
62 | Software Engineer II | 4 to 7 yrs
[[/table]]
Levels 59 and 60 share a title, and so do 61 and 62. Above them, 63 and 64 are Senior Software Engineer. Experience is only a guide. Several candidates report joining at 61 with six years of experience, so your performance in the loop matters more than your years.
The Microsoft interview rounds, one by one
Online test
Campus hires and many early-career candidates start with an online test, often on Codility or a similar platform. Expect two or three problems. Experienced candidates sometimes get a short version with two easy problems, and some skip it entirely after a referral.
DSA rounds
Medium-level problems, sometimes hard, often framed as a short story instead of a textbook prompt. Graphs, trees, DP and two-pointer problems come up a lot. Some interviewers ask you to run your code, while others only want the approach and complexity. Many rounds start with 10 to 15 minutes of questions about your projects.
Low-level design (LLD)
Common from Level 60 upward. You design classes and interfaces for a small system, like a parking lot or a library, and sometimes write part of the code. Interviewers check whether your design would cope with new requirements.
High-level design (HLD)
Standard from Level 61 upward. Recent prompts include a distributed key-value store, a file sync service and a URL shortener. Expect long discussions on sharding, replication and the trade-off between consistency and availability.
The AA round
AA stands for "as appropriate". It's usually the last round and is taken by a senior manager or director from outside your immediate interview panel. Their recommendation carries a lot of weight in the final decision.
Some AA rounds are mostly behavioural: your career path, why Microsoft, how you've handled conflict and failure. Others include a design or coding problem. Ask your recruiter which kind to expect. Microsoft also cares about growth mindset, so prepare stories about learning from mistakes and changing your approach after feedback.
One Level 60 candidate described feeling the AA round went badly and still got the offer with positive feedback from every round. A shaky-feeling AA round isn't always a rejection.
Practise the AA round with a senior interviewer
Microsoft Level 59 interview experience
Level 59 is the entry level, mostly for campus hires and new graduates. Candidates usually take an online test first, then three or four interviews in a single day.
The rounds are mostly DSA at LeetCode medium level, with the occasional hard problem. Expect questions about your college projects and internships, plus a few basics like OOP, operating systems and databases. The final round is often an AA round that leans behavioural at this level, with questions about why Microsoft and how you handle setbacks.
Practice questions (not leaked):
- Given meeting start and end times, find the minimum number of rooms needed.
- Find all triplets in an array that add up to zero.
- Tell me about a project where something went wrong. What did you learn?
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Microsoft Level 60 interview experience
Level 60 is for engineers with roughly one to three years of experience. The loop usually has three or four technical rounds plus an AA round.
Most rounds are DSA, with one that adds low-level design or a deep dive into your current project. Interviewers expect you to explain design choices in code you've shipped. One Level 60 candidate with 2.6 years of experience described five rounds in total and an offer of about ₹27 lakh total compensation, according to their post on Blind. Offers vary a lot, so treat that as one data point.
Practice questions (not leaked):
- Design the classes for a parking lot, then add reserved spots and hourly pricing.
- Given a grid of servers, count how many groups of connected servers there are.
- Tell me about feedback that changed how you write code.
Microsoft Level 61 interview experience
Level 61 is Software Engineer II, and system design becomes a regular part of the loop here.
A typical 2026 Bengaluru loop reported on LeetCode Discuss had a DSA round, an LLD round, an HLD round on a distributed key-value store (with a long discussion of sharding, replication and consistency), and a hiring manager or AA round. Another Level 61 candidate described an HLD round full of trade-off questions, a graph problem they hadn't seen before, and a final round that mixed a resume deep dive with design and behavioural questions.
Practice questions (not leaked):
- Design a distributed cache that stays available when a node goes down.
- Design the classes for a library management system with reservations and fines.
- Tell me about a technical trade-off you made that you'd change today.
Microsoft Level 62 interview experience
Level 62 is the senior end of Software Engineer II. Candidates often have four to seven years of experience. The loop looks like Level 61, but the design round carries more weight, and the hiring manager and AA rounds expect stories about leading features and mentoring others.
One Level 62 candidate in Bengaluru described a short Codility screen with two easy problems, then four rounds: DSA, LLD, system design and hiring manager. Several candidates say a director took the AA round at this level.
If you interview for 62 and your design feedback is mixed, Microsoft may offer 61 instead. That's the most common way a 62 loop ends in disappointment.
Practice questions (not leaked):
- Design a file sync service like OneDrive that handles conflicts when two devices edit the same file offline.
- Design a rate limiter shared across many API servers.
- Tell me about a time you led a feature across more than one team.
Book a Level 61 / 62 design mock
How to prepare for a Microsoft interview
For Level 59 and 60, focus on DSA. Work through a pattern-based list like NeetCode 150 (our comparison of NeetCode 150, Blind 75 and LeetCode 150 helps you choose), and practise explaining your approach out loud. Revise OOP, OS and DBMS basics for the project and fundamentals questions.
For Level 61 and 62, split your time roughly evenly between DSA and design. Practise LLD problems in code and HLD problems out loud with a 45-minute timer. Our system design interview preparation guide has a framework and the 15 most common questions.
For every level, prepare four or five stories for the AA round: a failure you learned from, feedback that changed your work, a disagreement you handled well, and why Microsoft. Keep each one under two minutes.
Then do a full mock loop, including a mock AA round. It's the round people prepare least for.
FAQs
How many rounds are in the Microsoft interview in India? Usually three or four technical rounds plus an AA round, often on the same day. Many candidates also take an online test first.
What is the AA round at Microsoft? AA stands for "as appropriate". It's usually the final round, taken by a senior manager or director, and their recommendation carries a lot of weight. It can be behavioural, technical or both.
Are Level 61 and 62 the same role? Both are Software Engineer II. Level 62 is the more senior band, with higher pay and a higher bar in the design round.
Can Microsoft offer a lower level than I interviewed for? Yes. If design or AA feedback is mixed, a Level 62 candidate may be offered 61.
How quickly does Microsoft share results? Many candidates hear back within one or two days of the final round, though compensation discussions can take a couple of weeks.
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One design round or one AA conversation can decide your level at Microsoft. Practise both with an engineer from a top tech company, get honest feedback on every round, and go into your loop knowing where you'd land.
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