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      Software Engineer Interview

      Jan 22, 2012
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Mountain View, CA
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Jan 2012

      Interview

      This is a more verbose review for those who want to know what the entire process is like. I won't list of exact questions due to NDA which I would like to respect, but will outline areas - see (*). Some quick background on myself: new grad with masters in computer science. Although I did not receive an offer in the end, it was a great experience and Google left me with a very positive impression about them. Albeit, the entire process was overall on the slow side, but my HR contact was very responsive to emails and kept me up-to-date. I applied online on the company website. About a week later, I got an email to schedule two back-to-back phone interviews in < a week. Second one was rescheduled last minute to next week. Both phone interviewers went very smoothly and the interviewers were very polite and easy to speak with. Each were an hour in length, with maybe the first 10-15 minutes of resume questions, background, etc., then it quickly became technical. I coded in a shared Google Doc for both. The first interviewer asked for whatever language (I chose C++), but the second one insisted on Python (which I was happy to oblige, it's actually my favorite to hack in). I had those two on my resume, so I assume they were probing me to see if I was lying. They will not ask you anything not on your resume and conversely, don't lie/exaggerate as if one of the largest tech. companies doesn't encounter that on a daily basis! ***** I haven't seen any of the questions they asked here on Glassdoor, but were similar in complexity. 1st phone interview in C++: was asked to design and code a data structure with specific customization to a queue, big-O analysis, optimization, and short discussions on two other problems (no code due to time constraint). 2nd phone interview: manipulating lists in Python, write some SQL queries (simple selects with joins) for a DB schema he pasted into the doc, also answered some high-level conceptual questions on data structures. Made a small error in one of the SQL queries that I quickly corrected, but pretty much got the rest without help. With that said, couldn't answer the last sub-question in each interview, but they both said it was more of a bonus at that point. Within an hour of the second phone interview, got an email saying they were impressed and decided to move on to onsite interview. This is the part that took a while, almost three weeks just to get it finalized, but it did go smoothly. They put me in a nice hotel for two nights which provided breakfast and a shuttle limo (yes, limo) to/from the Googleplex. The office was very nice, the whole dot-com atmosphere still in full swing. Cubicles looked a bit cramped though compared with other places I've seen. Four people sharing one big cube. I've had larger, private cubicles in past internships at other places. Not a big deal though, I guess. Food was fantastic, better than the crap I regularly eat anyways. My big day lasted four hours consisting of 4 one-on-ones each about 45 minutes and a one hour lunch meeting (not evaluated) with a senior who would answer whatever questions I had and gave me a tour of the campus. All interviewers were very nice and helpful and really do try to push you in the right direction - some more than others, naturally. Perhaps one came off as a bit arrogant at times, but still helpful. Another implicitly told me he wasn't into his duties, but ironically was the most fun to speak with. ***** I guess here's what most people want: Two interviewers asked resume questions for maybe 5 minutes, but other than that everything was purely technical: writing code on a whiteboard. The questions ranged from binary search trees (recursion), caching, string manipulation and some random recursion (I got an easy one). Usually asked to design test cases at end (no code). They were not very difficult, but it was clear that you really had to know them inside-out. Be sure to constantly talk and explain what you are thinking. Much better than long periods of silence which I had a few times. I couldn't solve a corner (admittedly important) case for the BST question, and my design for the specialized caching question was not too impressive but it did work; other than that, I pretty much solved the rest without hints. Any time left-over is given to you to ask them whatever you'd like. Went to hiring committee, but alas, two weeks later got the disappointing email they were not going to extend me an offer. HR contact encouraged me to reapply after a year of industry experience, which, depending on my situation at that time, I will consider. Google has the advantage that if they are not absolutely certain you'd be a stellar engineer, they will pass even if this means false negatives.

      Interview questions [3]

      Question 1

      Phone: resume, custom queue data structure, list manipulation in Python, SQL, couple other short questions (no code)
      Answer question

      Question 2

      Onsite: binary search trees, string manipulation, designing a cache, recursion
      Answer question

      Question 3

      Both: Big-O analysis, optimize, design test cases
      Answer question
      7

      Other Software Engineer Interview Reviews for Google

      Software Engineer Interview

      May 4, 2014
      Anonymous employee
      Auburndale, FL
      Accepted offer
      Positive experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Google (Auburndale, FL) in Apr 2014

      Interview

      Direct onsite because I interviewed in the past and did well that time. From the time I sent my resume to interview day: 2 weeks. From interview day to offer over the phone: 2 weeks. The syllabus for the interviews is very clear and simple: 1) Dynamic Programming 2) Super recursion (permutation, combination,...2^n, m^n, n!...etc. type of program. (NP hard, NP programs) 3) Probability related programs 4) Graphs: BFS/DFS are usually enough 5) All basic data structures from Arrays/Lists to circular queues, BSTs, Hash tables, B-Trees, and Red-Black trees, and all basic algorithms like sorting, binary search, median,... 6) Problem solving ability at a level similar to TopCoder Division 1, 250 points. If you can consistently solve these, then you are almost sure to get in with 2-weeks brush up. 7) Review all old interview questions in Glassdoor to get a feel. If you can solve 95% of them at home (including coding them up quickly and testing them out in a debugger + editor setup), you are in good shape. 8) Practice coding--write often and write a lot. If you can think of a solution, you should be able to code it easily...without much thought. 9) Very good to have for design interview: distributed systems knowledge and practical experience. 10) Good understanding of basic discrete math, computer architecture, basic math. 11) Coursera courses and assignments give a lot of what you need to know. 12) Note that all the above except the first 2 are useful in "real life" programming too! Interview 1: Graph related question and super recursion Interview 2: Design discussion involving a distributed system with writes/reads going on at different sites in parallel. Interview 3: Array and Tree related questions Interview 4: Designing a simple class to do something. Not hard, but not easy either. You need to know basic data structures very well to consider different designs and trade-offs. Interview 5: Dynamic programming, Computer architecture and low level perf. enhancement question which requires knowledge of Trees, binary search, etc. At the end, I wasn't tired and rather enjoyed the discussions. I think the key was long term preparation and time spent doing topcoder for several years (on and off as I enjoy solving the problems). Conclusion: "It's not the best who win the race; it's the best prepared who win it."
      2501

      Software Engineer Interview

      Jun 7, 2026
      Anonymous employee
      Seabrook, NH
      Accepted offer
      Positive experience
      Easy interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Google (Seabrook, NH)

      Interview

      Had a good interview. Easy problems not leetcode but if you know how to solve problems and use which DSA to use for what problem then you are good.. system design as well.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Tell me about yourself ?
      Answer question

      Software Engineer Interview

      Jun 7, 2026
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Los Altos, CA
      No offer
      Neutral experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Google (Los Altos, CA)

      Interview

      Went with an OA which was pretty easy. Then got to second round (1 coding and 1 behavioral). Both were pretty straight forward. Then got to the onsite. They asked me leetcode hard questions. I was able to do well in one but failed the other one.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Why do you want to work at Google?
      Answer question

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