Google Software Development Engineer Interview

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()