I was a contractor at Microsoft before, and had many interviews there over the years. After my previous QA manager at Microsoft passed my resume on to the hiring HR for a SDET position with a different team, I had an interview with the HR personnel. She then sent me a list of questions to answer for the hiring team to review. Most of these questions are about testing strategy and how one would approach testing... After I submitted my answers, HR followed up with me a couple of days later to schedule for a technical phone interview with the hiring manager. The phone interview went about an hour, and the hiring manager asked me to do some coding and send it to him through email. A few days later, HR let me know the team chose to move on with different candidates. The whole process was professionally done. I believe whoever could show strong passion, good knowledge, and last but not least well fit in with the hiring team will get the job.