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Updated weekly · Last refresh Aug 30

Microsoft Research Scientist Interview Questions

The questions to prepare for a Microsoft Research Scientist interview. Questions from real interview reports rank first. Updated weekly.

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1
CodingStart here. 14 questions · ~122 min
Reverse a Linked ListEasy
Practice

Reverse a singly linked list in place using pointer manipulation.

RecursionLinked ListsMicrosoft
Custom PyTorch Training LoopHard

Tests ability to implement efficient training mechanics without framework shortcuts.

RecursionMathArraysMicrosoft
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2
NLP8 questions · ~70 min
Explain Transformer Architecture and Attention MechanismsHard

Discuss the architecture of Transformers, focusing on self-attention and its impact on NLP tasks.

Neural NetworksLanguage ModelsDeep LearningMicrosoft
Compare Positional Encodings in TransformersMedium

Implement and compare sinusoidal vs learned positional encodings in a Transformer for legal clause classification where word order changes meaning.

Language ModelsDeep LearningTokenizationMicrosoft
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3
Machine Learning7 questions · ~61 min
Vanishing Gradients in Deep NetworksMedium

Explain vanishing gradients in deep networks and how residual connections, batch normalization, and activation choice improve training.

Neural NetworksDeep LearningGradient DescentMicrosoft
Compare Loss Functions MathematicallyHard

Tests deep understanding of ML objectives and their implications.

RegularizationSupervised LearningGradient DescentMicrosoft
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4
More topics4 questions · ~35 min
Evaluate a New ML Feature Before LaunchMedium

Assess whether a new ML feature should launch using offline metrics, online tests, and guardrails.

PrecisionAccuracyRecallMicrosoft
Multimodal Recommender With LLMsHard

Assesses your ability to design multimodal recommendation systems with modern LLM and CV components.

Microsoft
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