I had an interview with a series of 4 or 5 TEs in person and one phone interview prior to getting the TE interview. I was taken up to their Northern California campus and was led around to various offices to do a series of interview questions. Of them, I had more interviews related to abstractly figuring out problems software product manufacturers are having and less on actual coding expertise. It took about 3 hours, not counting the short breaks in-between interviews. Thankfully I was with a group of other people interviewing at the same time, so the interviews were one-on-one, but I could at least talk to people before, during, and after to decompress a little.

I was recruited by Microsoft directly. I had an initial phone interview with a TE, who was very nice to talk to. She just asked me questions about my resume, interest in Microsoft, classes I took, etc. Just general questions. I got an email a few days later and flew out to Mountain View to have an in-person interview. I interviewed with four TE's, two were coding interviews and two were soft skills interviews. Coding interview was based on what my resume said (I was asked technical questions based on what I have worked on). All of the interviewers were wonderful to talk to and let me be open and honest.