Mentors who have worked at Microsoft
Talk to engineers and product people who have worked at Microsoft about interview loops, levelling, and what building at that scale actually asks of you day to day.
Before you book a Microsoft mentor
How do I choose the right Microsoft mentor?
Microsoft spans an unusually wide range of engineering cultures — Azure, gaming, developer tools and research are close to different companies. A mentor's answer to "what is it like" is only useful once you have said which part you are aiming at, so name the org when you book.
What should I bring to a Microsoft mentor session?
For interviews, the loop rewards candidates who think out loud and collaborate with the interviewer rather than performing a rehearsed solution. That is a skill worth practising against a person, and it is exactly what a mock session buys you that a problem set cannot.
If you are weighing an offer, ask about the level you have been offered rather than the title. Levels drive compensation, scope and the shape of the next few years far more than the words on the offer letter.
What people bring to these sessions
- Which Microsoft org actually fits what you want to build
- Preparing for a collaborative, think-aloud interview loop
- Understanding the level you have been offered
- Cloud and platform engineering career paths
- Moving from a services company into product engineering
19 mentors
- Zhang Li — Principal PM Manager at microsoft. People Management, Large Language Models (LLM), Product Management
- Abhinav Chittora — Senior Product Manager at microsoft. Machine Learning Algorithms, Product Roadmap, Product Lifecycle Management
- Sakshi Varshney — Member of Technical Staff at salesforce. Teaching, WordPress, .NET Framework
- Dilyana Radulova — Solutions Engineer at microsoft. Technical Demonstrations, Technical Presales, Presales
- Pulkit Sharma — Senior Software Engineer at microsoft. Product Development, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Continuous Integration (CI)
- Deepak Tiwari — Senior Software Engineer at microsoft. C#, Java, AI
- Mike Szewczyk — Regional Sales Manager, AI Business Solutions, Europe at microsoft. Planning next career moves, Career guidance, Sales strategy fundamentals
- Mayank Bhasin — Principal Product Manager at microsoft. Ai, Cloud, Product Management
- Darrin Johnson — Product Management Leader at guidacent, inc.. Career guidance, Handling layoffs and job loss, Moving into leadership roles
- Pradeep Panigrahi — Principal Software Engineer at microsoft. C#, Microsoft Copilot, Large Language Models (LLM)
- Akanksha Gupta — Engineering Manager at amazon. Career guidance, Engineering beyond software, Career transitions
- Boris Petkov — Senior Engineering Manager at microsoft. Engineering Management, People Management, Project Management
- Rajiv Mishra — Head of Strategy Execution & Operations | Chief of Staff to VP Engineering at coupang. Chief of Staff, Leadership, Executive Partnership & Advisory
- Anshika Bansal — Software Engineer 2 at amazon. Career guidance, Planning next career moves, Growing into senior roles
- Alex Velazquez — Software Engineer & Interview Coach at work with alex v. Mentoring, Interview Preparation, Coaching
- Tom Miller — Retired at microsoft. Career guidance, Growing into senior roles, Moving into leadership roles
- Nash Benjamasutin — meta. Understanding generative AI, Career guidance, Career transitions
- David Guida — Senior Software Engineer at microsoft. Design patterns, Software architecture, System programming
- Siddharth Ray — Principal Engineering Manager at microsoft. Distributed systems, System design, Artificial intelligence