Google Interview Questions & Reviews
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Software Engineer Test at Google
Posted Nov 20, 2009
4.0
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2009 in Mountain View, CA (took 4 weeks)
Made an application online for an internship position , was contacted and told am being considered for full-time position . Then two back to back phone interview were scheduled.
Phone Interview 1: Few questions on background and interest , followed by technical Questions
Phone Interview 2: About the same more stress to testing scenarios.
Onsite interview : 4 mostly algorithm questions . Rounds near continuous with a lunch break () ( should be considered an interview as well)
Response : Phone response after two weeks that was not selected.
Interview Questions
b)Find repeated occurrence of character in a string ?
Phone interview 2 : a) Given a 2D matrix of numbers find the position of number . Constraints of matrix number always in increasing order left to right and top to bottom .
b)When should version control be used . And a tricky discreet math problem ?
b) some kind of list merge problem
A list of lists eg : [A,B,C] // unsorted
A= [1,2,3]
B=[2,3]
C=[1,2]
Start with List in reverse alphabetical order
eg:C merge with B removing duplicates then merge this with A doing the same .
Optimize solution
c) Intersection of two Integer lists ?
b) Skyline silhouette puzzle .
c) Discussion on uses of hash-tables and trees ?
d) Few general questions on Work and academic background .
b) Networking question of Sliding Window over udp.
b) Additional graph question related to finding a subgraph with some API specified , needed to extend the prior solution.
c) Question on C/C++ Static Modifier , relation of it to Java.
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
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AdWords Associate at Google
Posted Nov 17, 2009
4.0
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Mar 2008 (took 6 weeks)
I applied online and heard back from a recruiter, who scheduled a phone interview with me. In that interview, I spoke mostly about my background and interest in working for Google. After the phone interview was the adwords worksheet, which was a set of exercises that took about an hour to complete. I thought that was a bit difficult, but I got through to the next round, which was in-person interviews.
I prepped for the Interview a lot, learning the AdWords product and others as well. I felt very prepared going into the on-site interviews.
I interviewed one-on-one with 4-5 Google staffers from different disciplines. Everyone was very friendly, but the interviews were intense. I had to show a lot of knowledge about their product offerings, explain things like "How would you explain the Internet to a five year old?", and also speak to my strengths and value for Google. I felt the interviews went really well, but in the end, they didn't feel I had enough customer service experience for the position.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.
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HR at Google
Posted Nov 16, 2009
4.0
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Aug 2009 in New York, NY (took 6 months)
Google has very interesting opportunities, and detailed their position profiles well so you have a clear idea when you interview what the gig is about. However, they dont share any feedback ever, and the process lasted six months with 12 interviews in total. Their interview questions were thoughtful and meaty, and you have to know your stuff when you are interviewing with them. However, they dont build on the answers, and one has the impression they have a drop down menu memeorized in their heads of the questions to ask, and they write the answers down, but they are not necessarily considering the answer. Their office space in NY and CA is very cool, and they try hard to keep it that way. But while many believe Google is the holy grail, Google still needs to protect their brand, give feedback to candidates and significantly shorten the process.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
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Software Engineer at Google
Posted Nov 15, 2009
4.0
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2009 (took a day)
I was interviewed by two google employees, for an hour each. I was in a small room with a white board and was asked to write the solutions to various coding question. The second interviewer also left some time for me to ask her about what it was like to work at google.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.
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Software Engineer at Google
Posted Nov 13, 2009
5.0
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2009 (took a day)
Initial phone screen with recruiter. A few days later, I was invited to take part in a technical phone interview of around 45 minutes - 1 hour with an engineer, asking a range of questions and coding exercises to be completed online on a shared document.
Several days later I heard they wanted to progress. Came on site for a series of 5 technical interviews of around 1 hour each. I had to answer technical questions on a wide range of topics and complete coding exercises on a whiteboard.
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
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Software Engineer at Google
Posted Nov 12, 2009
3.0
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2009 (took 2 days)
Had 2 phone interviews 45 minutes each. All interviews were technical. Half of the time we were talking about my experience and my projects. On the first interview I had problems which the Google Engineer asked me to program in Java. On the second interview I was programming in C.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Software Engineer at Google
Posted Nov 10, 2009
4.0
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jul 2009 (took a day)
Technical phone interview with two managers, focused mainly on solving various problems in the best possible runtime. Seems like they were really concerned with how fast you went through your problem-solving process and were you able to come up with an optimal solution in a "thinking on your feet" situation. They gave the impression they were looking for people that live, breathe, and eat code 24/7.
HR recruiter was pretty good -- very responsive and very helpful. She definitely wasn't kidding when she said advised me to make sure I review the list of topics she sent out.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Skills Test.
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Software Engineer at Google
Posted Nov 10, 2009
3.0
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2009 (took a day)
it was two rounds 45min interviews. interviewers are pretty nice. First ask me to talk about past experience, and then went to technical questions. one tech question is local celebrity problem, describe the algorithm and implement it. antoher one is about merge sort. besides, one interviewer also asked a puzzle.
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
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Software Development Engineer at Google
Posted Nov 6, 2009
4.0
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Aug 2009 (took 2 weeks)
Google sure knows how to treat their interview candidates well. I went for an on-site interview in their beautiful new Kirkland office. They offered me fresh brewed coffee in the morning and, of course, invited me to partake in a gourmet lunch.
Interviewers are well-prepared and all interviews seem to follow a similar format. I had four interviews, each lasting one hour. Each round starts with a few short answer questions before diving into coding. I studied a number of interview question sites beforehand but was still quite surprised when I actually GOT one of the questions from there. So it partially paid off.
Best advice is as others say, know your data structures and algorithms. I didn't get any high level design questions. As soon as you get the problem statement, think out loud! No matter how stupid it sounds, silence is even worse. It's fine to come up with a really inefficient solution to start. The interviewer will usually drop hints if there is a better way. Finally, know how to figure out your big O()
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
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Software Engineer at Google
Posted Nov 6, 2009
3.0
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2009 in Seattle, WA (took 7 weeks)
Submitted resume online on 2009-09-15.
Received an email from someone in Staffing on 2009-10-07 asking for my location preferences, whether I am eligible to work in US, and actual date of intended graduation.
Received email from recruiter in Seattle/Kirkland office on 2009-10-08 to schedule a phone call. Told me we would talk about Google's recruiting process and focus on my background, education, and career interests to ensure that I speak with engineers who have a background and interests similar to my own.
Received call from recruiter as scheduled on 2009-10-14. We talked about Google's recruiting process, but not so much about my background, education, and career interests. I made sure she had my latest resume and I asked some questions about work-life balance in the Seattle office and also about Google's IP/non-compete policies. After the call I emailed times I would be available for two back-to-back technical phone interviews.
Received email from recruiter on 2009-10-15 confirming my scheduled time for two back-to-back technical phone interviews. Email included information about types of software engineer positions in the office and links to various Google pages (Labs, Code, lifeatgoogle Youtube channel) and Yegge's advice article. Also asked me to answer a few preliminary questions about myself to ensure I don't have any conflicts.
Received call from first Google engineer as scheduled on 2009-10-20. He described his work in Gmail on contact management and chat, mainly using C++. He asked me to describe a big project I've worked on and I told him about my thesis and its accompanying software implementation. He then asked some technical questions. I asked him about his work-life balance in that office and asked him if working there is anything like what you read about in Hamming's "You and Your Research."
After the interview I hung out for a couple hours waiting for the next phone call but it never came. I contacted the recruiter and she informed me that the second interviewer was unable to access his calendar and was unable to call. We rescheduled the second interview.
Received phone call from second engineer as rescheduled on 2009-10-23. He told me how he works on Google Maps and used to work on Talk at the Kirkland office. He asked me to talk about my thesis and I did, but for some reason I got really nervous talking about it this time. Voice was shaky for a while. After that he asked two technical questions. I asked him about his work-life balance at that office and what his most interesting use of Google's tremendous resources has been.
I was told by both engineers that I would hear from the recruiter soon so I waited for a week and a half or so. On 2009-11-04 I emailed the recruiter asking if we would be proceeding with the interview and later that evening I received a call from her stating the engineers enjoyed talking to me but we would not be moving forward.
The overall process was enjoyable, even when I was an anxious wreck. The technical interviews boosted my confidence, even though I stumbled on the easiest questions (postorder & basic C programming). The first engineer was far more polite & humble than the second one, but the second one was certainly civil enough. The recruiter was kind, easy to talk to, and obviously put effort into answering all of my tough questions about the Seattle/Kirkland offices & Google policies.
I learned that the Seattle/Kirkland offices tend to be a little more laid-back than the Mountain View office. Also, Google does make you sign a non-compete but it's not overly draconian. Many engineers run their own companies after hours and are even allowed to use AdWords and whatnot, provided they sign some agreements. I encourage you to go through the process for interview practice if nothing else.
Interview Questions
* When would you want to use a balanced tree rather than a hashmap?
* Imagine you're writing a function that takes an array of integers and an integer and it needs to return true if any pair in the array sum to the 2nd argument. The array can have negative numbers, zero, or positive numbers. Describe how you would design this function and what its running time would be. I ran through the trivial n^2 solution, then modified it to an nlogn and finally to a linear solution.
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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