Google Software Engineer Interview

Interviewed Feb 2007 in New York, NY (took 2 weeks)

A Google recruiter contacted me (I never applied for any positions in Google). Within a week I had my phone interview which went very well. They decided to skip the second phone interview (at least that's what I was told) and invited me to the NY office for in person interview. In person interview lasted the whole day with me talking to 6 people and having a lunch with a team. I found the office to be super cool and fun atmosphere and people were very nice. They questions asked were fairly reasonable. What threw me off was recruiter stressing several times that Google's approach to interviews is very academic. I was more technical then academic (I thought) and spend the next week reviewing algorithms and data structures and such. I was told at the end that I have very strong professional qualifications, but my knowledge is more academic and were looking for somebody with more hands on experience (after me throwing theory at them left and right). At the end I think I overdid it. I think you need to find a good balance if you want to get hired.