Microsoft SDE vs SDE II vs Senior SDE Interview: What Each Level Is Tested On (Prep Checklist)

Going from SDE to Senior SDE at Microsoft India is about a 2.6× pay jump, and every level is tested differently. This page is a simple checklist: find your level, tick the boxes, and practise on the free InterviewSkool pages linked in each section.

Pay at Each Level (Microsoft India)

Averages from levels.fyi for Microsoft India, 5–6 Nov 2026. "Total pay" means salary + stock + bonus, per year. The level-number pairs come from candidate guides, not from Microsoft. Your offer can be higher or lower. For more on the levels, see our Microsoft software engineering levels guide, or the pay pages for SDE, SDE II and Senior SDE.

Why this matters: if you prepare for SDE II the way you'd prepare for SDE, you may get an SDE offer. That's about ₹16 L a year less for the same job hunt. The level is decided by how you answer, not just whether you solve the problem.

How the Microsoft Loop Works (All Levels)

• Before the loop: usually a recruiter call, then an online coding test or a phone screen.
• The loop: usually 4–5 one-hour interviews. They mix coding, design and questions about your past work.
• Design changes with level: class design (how you split a program into classes, e.g. a parking lot) is common at earlier levels. Large-system design (many servers, many users) is common at senior level.
• The last round is often the "as appropriate" (AA) round. It is usually with a more senior person from the hiring group. Many candidates say their word counts a lot, but guides disagree on how much. Teams differ, so don't treat it as a trap. Treat it as one more round to do well in.

Start here on InterviewSkool:

• A step-by-step prep planner built around your dates (sign in first): InterviewSkool prep planner
• Why this company? How to answer well: why this company
• How Microsoft's coding round works: Microsoft coding interview guide

SDE (L59/60) Checklist: Coding Basics

What they check: can you write correct code and explain it while you do it? Usually coding rounds, often one design round on classes, and questions about your past projects.

• I can solve easy and medium problems on arrays, strings, linked lists and trees in about 30 minutes.
• I know the basics of hash maps, two pointers and recursion.
• I talk out loud: I say my idea, the time/space cost, then code. No silent typing.
• I test my own code with a small example and an edge case (empty input, one element, duplicates).
• For a class design (like a parking lot), I list the classes, what each one holds, and how they talk to each other.
• I have 3 stories from college or internship projects: something I built, a bug I fixed, something I learned.

Practise on InterviewSkool (free):

• 50 real Microsoft coding questions (17 easy, 24 medium, 9 hard), free to browse with no sign-up
• Full DSA problem list by topic
• Topic guides: arrays & strings · linked lists · hash maps · two pointers · trees & graphs · stack & queue · sorting
• Small design practice: coffee ordering · car reservation · to-do list service
• Introduce yourself well: tell me about yourself

Red flag: "I'll just code it" with no plan, then 10 minutes of silent typing.

SDE II (L61/62) Checklist: Harder Coding Plus Design

What they check: everything from SDE, raised: harder coding, cleaner code, and designs that hold up. You may get class design and a first system design.

• All the SDE boxes above, done faster, with fewer hints.
• I can solve medium and some hard problems: graphs, dynamic programming (breaking a problem into smaller repeated parts), heaps and intervals.
• My code is clean: clear names, small functions, edge cases handled before I'm asked.
• For a class design I think about what will change later, and I can say how my design would handle a new rule.
• In a system design round I can: list requirements → estimate numbers (users, requests per second) → draw a simple design → go deep on the hardest part.
• I know when to use a cache, a queue and a load balancer, and what each one costs me.
• I have stories where I owned a feature: the problem, my part, the result with a number.

Practise on InterviewSkool (free):

• 24 real Microsoft system design problems (Sept 2025 – Sept 2026), each with a full solution
• Start with these case studies: ticket booking · calendar service · URL shortener · collaborative editing · notification service (all at system design case studies)
• Harder coding topics: dynamic programming · BFS vs DFS · heaps · intervals · sliding window · backtracking
• The building blocks: what is system design · caching · message queues · load balancing · SQL vs NoSQL
• Stories about your work: tell me about a time

Red flag: naming tools ("Kafka, Redis") without saying why. Or stories that say "we did" and never "I did".

Senior SDE (L63/64) Checklist: Scale Plus Leadership

What they check: not more buzzwords, but better judgment. Big system design with real trade-offs, and stories about helping others grow and leading without being the boss.

• In design rounds I drive the interview: I pick the hardest part myself and go deep without being asked.
• For every big choice I give two options and why I picked one (e.g. "strong vs eventual consistency", "SQL vs NoSQL").
• I talk about what breaks first: hot keys, a server or region going down, retries causing duplicates, and how I'd notice (metrics, alerts).
• I can design for very large scale: millions of users, many regions, cost.
• I have a story about helping others grow: mentoring, code reviews, raising the team's bar.
• I have a story about leading without being the boss: getting people from other teams to follow my plan.
• I have a story about a big call under unclear facts: what I knew, what I chose, what happened.
• I can talk about my technical depth in one past project for 20 minutes, including what I'd change now.

Practise on InterviewSkool (free):

• Harder case studies with deep dives: key-value store · metrics monitoring · cache hot keys · object storage · distributed file system
• Trade-off guides: CAP theorem · consistent hashing · sharding · rate limiting · CDN
• Leadership stories: showing leadership

Red flag: a perfect diagram with no trade-offs. Or stories where you only did your own tasks well. At Senior SDE that reads as a strong SDE II.

Your Story Bank

Microsoft has no list of Leadership Principles, so prepare stories around the themes below and reuse them. Write 5–6 stories. Each one should fit the STAR shape: Situation → Task → Action (what you did) → Result (with a number). Pick the right size of story for your level.

Full guides: behavioral questions · tell me about a time · tell me about yourself · why this company

Quick Self-Check: Which Level Are You Ready For?

If you can't tick every must for the level you're applying to, that's your prep list. Go back to that level's checklist above.

A Simple 4-Week Plan

Want a plan built around your own dates and weak spots? Sign in first, then use the InterviewSkool prep planner.

Test Yourself at Your Level Before Microsoft Does

The fastest way to find out which level you're at is a real practice interview. On InterviewSkool you can do a mock interview with Alex, our AI interviewer: coding mocks, and system design mocks at SDE-2, SDE-3 or Staff level, with a score out of 100 and feedback on exactly what kept you from the next level. Your first demo interview is free. Practise with Microsoft questions: coding · system design

Pay figures are levels.fyi averages for Microsoft India (5–6 Nov 2026), self-reported, and change over time. Real offers vary by city, team and stock grants. Round counts are typical, not fixed; each team runs its loop a little differently. InterviewSkool is not affiliated with Microsoft, and this is not an official Microsoft document.