The initial interview was a 30min phone interview with the manager. Afterwards, they sent over a design challenge where you were to solve the problem using your creative skills.
Given that this was for a UX position, you were to show your thought process, user flow, wireframes, and high fidelity designs. They expect you to take your designs into prototypes but do not explicitly tell you, it's a characteristic they look for. The task shouldn't take more than 5 hours, but most people spend well over that amount, and you should have it completed within the next day or two.
After I submitted my solutions, we had another phone interview where I walked him through my presentation and he would give me feedback. The manager asked a lot of why questions and then challenged me to go further with some portions of the design. He then asked me to do another revision with his feedback and to send it over when I was done and a MS recruiter would be in touch.
About 5 days later the recruiter reached out to me and said that they would like to bring me in for an in-person interview. After we found a date, I was told it would be a full-day of interviewing. I was also told to bring a portfolio presentation to showcase my work (about 3-5 pieces) that would take about an hour.
The interview day came and I met with the recruiter. He gave me a sheet of my interview schedule (2 presentations with a panel, and 4 one-on-ones). He mentioned that after the first 2 presentations the group would get a general understanding of how the interview is going, and at this point some people are asked to leave. Each interview is a gatekeeper to the next step.
The first presentation was easy, it was mostly with other designers on various teams that I would be interacting with. People asked questions about the work, why I went with this direction, what my design tools are, etc.
The second presentation was much harder, it was with all of the team managers and I was to present my design exercise. As I walked the group through my process they would ask questions and I was to elaborate for a design decision I made. As I presented my last slide they then proceeded to ask "what if..." questions that were really rough. They would change the scope or ask to think of doing something completely different. It's more of a task to see how well you respond to criticism and how fast you can think on your feet. They gladly pointed me to the whiteboard and I drew various scenarios with what I would do. It was very challenging as I would finish with one scenario someone asked, someone else would as "but what if you wanted to do..." and you would go through that process.
After the second, long, interview I was to have lunch with another manager. As we walked and ate lunch, I went over what I was passionate about, what I thought about MS, where I saw the future going with technology, etc. The manager then went over the MS philosophy and what products I would be working on, and was mostly a "personality fit" interview. After that I had another interview with another manager who would give me another design exercise that I was to solve in an hour. This one was harder as the details were very vague and I had to ask a lot of questions. After that, I had another interview with another manager where they were open to any questions I wanted to ask and was more of a "you've done a great job so far, now you're meeting with the division director". This last one was one of the hardest as I presented my portfolio and design exercise to the director of the entire division. He sat mostly silent, no expressions given, and asked few questions. Afterwards, he shook my hand and said "you did good" and walked me out.
I was now done. I had no idea how well it went, but I figured it went well enough to interview with the director. The recruiter called me the next to day to see how I was feeling about the position and how the rest of the interview went. He mentioned that after the group decides whether they would give me an offer, it would be about 3-5 days before I heard from them. 2 days later I got a call from the recruiter saying that they would like to give me an offer. He explained all of the initial benefits of MS and how compensation would work. I told him that I would gladly accept and began offer process (which took about a week long).