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Google Interview Questions & Reviews in Los Angeles, CA Area
Getting the Interview 38 Interviews
Interview Experience 35 Ratings
Software Engineer Intern at Google
No Offer – Interviewed in Los Angeles, CA Mar 2013 – Reviewed Mar 28, 2013
Interview Details –
two 45-min interviews, First talk about resume and two basic coding questions: hashMap and Newton-raphson functions. Second, talk about two basic coding questions: hashMap and flatten iterator.
I didn't work out the iterator question and finally get rejected.
Interview Question – flatten iterator View Answers (2)
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Software Engineer at Google
No Offer – Interviewed in Los Angeles, CA – Reviewed Feb 27, 2013
Interview Details – I contacted a recruiter, and asked about applying.
Interview Questions
-
The first phone interview was just a series of high level questions. Here are a couple:
1) Why are calls to virtual functions slower
2) How would you find the maximum occurrence of a word in a huge file (no coding - just high level explanation).
3) What is the factory pattern.
Things like that
The second phone interview was purely coding 1 big long, but easy problem. The problem was this: Write code to verify a Sudoku board. View Answer -
First Person:
Simply high level questions about how to achieve certain things. For example:
1) How would you write a pancake sort routine
2) You have a network of friends (linked in friends, facebook friends, etc). How would you keep track of all the people you are connected to.
3) What is the run time of the A* search (only because I mentioned it somewhere along the line).
Second person:
1) Write code to find duplicates in a linked list
2) How would you synchronize a linked list across multiple computers. If nodes are added/removed to a linked list on one computer, all others must reflect this change. Concurrancy must be accounted for View Answer -
Third person:
Given a 2-d array, write code to print it out in a snake pattern. For example, if the array is this:
1, 2, 3
4, 5, 6
7, 8, 9
the routine prints this:
1,2,3,6,9,8,7,4,5
The array is an NxN array.
The final question was just how to write a connection pool (i.e, a class that returns connections to the user, and if the user is done, returns them back to the pool) View Answers (3) -
Given a set top box:
a, b, c, d, e,
f, g, h, i, j,
k, l, m, n, o
p, q, r, s, t
u, v, w, x, y
z
Write code to give the character sequence given a word, For example, if the word is "CON", the function will print this:
Right//now we're at B
Right//now we're at C
OK//to select C
Down
DOwn
Right
Right
OK//to select O
Left//now at N
OK//to select N
note: Be careful when you're at Z. if you go to the right, you will get stuck.
Afterwards, the interviewer adds a space to the right of 'Z' to test the code. View Answers (2) - Write a routine that does secret santa in O(N) time. View Answers (2)
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Product Manager at Google
No Offer – Interviewed in Irvine, CA Sep 2012 – Reviewed Feb 4, 2013
Interview Details – I submitted my application through a friend who works at Google. I was contacted by the recruiter the very next day. The recruiter was very informative and detailed the entire interview process. They also give you questions to prep in advance.
Interview Question – For a PM position, Google wants to understand your thought process. Even though the questions were very general, I felt they asked me a lot of technical questions (i.e. algorithms) Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Site Reliability Engineer at Google
No Offer – Interviewed in Santa Monica, CA Jun 2011 – Reviewed Jan 28, 2013
Interview Details – Google still doesn't know how to hire ops personnel - their interviews are geared towards Ph.D. comp sci candidates for software engineering, not sysadmins and people with deep operational experience. Interview questions rarely touch on experience or problem solving or troubleshooting, and instead focus on reciting manual pages and protocol stack layers and behavior. Expect a 6-hour process with multiple people.
Interview Question – heavy programming discussion in one session, and deep TCP options and switch protocol questions in another. relevant to the role, but not to the degree the interviewers were pursuing. Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Software Engineer - New Grad at Google
No Offer – Interviewed in Irvine, CA Sep 2012 – Reviewed Oct 6, 2012
Interview Details –
I applied for google's new grad position that is available on Sep 1. They contacted me a few weeks later to set up a phone interview.
They gave me a list of categories to choose from (that I specialize in). Here were the choices: (choose 3)
* Advanced Algorithms
* Audio/video
* Billing/payment testing
* Compilers and software tools (linkers, debuggers, IDEs, etc.)
* Computer vision
* Concurrency, multi-threading, synchronization
* Database internals
* Distributed systems
* Embedded software and real-time systems
* Front end
* Graphics and imaging
* Information retrieval and data mining
* Internationalization
* Load and performance testing
* Mac and iPhone development
* Machine learning and AI
* Natural language processing
* Networking (TCP/IP and OSI stack)
* Object-oriented analysis and design
* Operating systems
* Production Systems
* Project Management
* QA
* Security and cryptography
* System administration
* Test automation
* UI design and implementation
* Web applications and multi-tiered systems
* Windows development
* Wireless applications
They also wanted you to choose your top 3 languages.
*********************PHONE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:*****************************
BASED ON WHAT YOU CHOSE, they will ask you to know certain things... I chose the software side, so my questions were focused on:
1.) Big-O and Algorithms
2.) C++, Java, C#
3.) System Design
4.) Sorting:
5.) Hashtables:
6.) Trees:
7.) Graphs:
9.) Discrete Math
10.) Operating Systems: processes, threads and concurrency issues. Know about locks and mutexes
BOOKS RECOMMENDED (by Google) :
1. Review of Basic Algorithms: Introduction to the Design and Analysis of Algorithms by Anany Levitin
2. Programming Interviews Exposed; Secrets to Landing Your Next Job (Programmer to Programmer) by John Mongan, Noah Suojanen, and Eric Giguere **HIGHLY RECOMMENDED**
Besides the questions listed below, they also asked:
--Which would be better for situation X, Merge Sort or Quick Sort?
Interview Questions
- Write a function that finds the median of a set of three numbers, also find the Big O. Can it be done with only 2 comparisons, or do you need 3? View Answers (8)
- If you had a savings account with $1, at a 100% interest rate, at what year would you have 15 billion dollars? View Answers (4)
- When would you want to use a hash table over a binary search tree? What are the Big O's? View Answer
- What IS Big O? View Answers (2)
- What happens if one resource is waiting on another resource to finish, but that SAME resource happens to be waiting on that other same resource.... View Answers (2)
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Software Engineer at Google
No Offer – Interviewed in Los Angeles, CA Nov 2012 – Reviewed Nov 26, 2012
Interview Details – Contacted by a recruiter, first passed a challenging 45 min phone screen, and then had then on site with 5 interviewers. It was about 60% algorithm questions, 30% design questions and 10% math. Not a single question was asked about my previous experience or knowledge. My feeling is that Google designs their interviews for Computer Science grad students, ie advanced courses or knowledge in algorithms will be far more helpful than 15 years of being an expert in your working field to get you a job at Google.
Interview Question – Beware that Google will ask random math questions during interviews. I got hit by a tricky algebra question that I had trouble with. I even got a calculus question. Again, this just shows that they're targeting people from academia who still remember all their advanced math. Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Software Engineer at Google
Accepted Offer – Interviewed in Los Angeles, CA Nov 2012 – Reviewed Nov 14, 2012
Interview Details – I concurrently applied for an opening on Google's YouTube team and was put in contact with a recruiter by an old neighbor. The YouTube application turned into a 45 minute phone interview, which turned into 4 onsite interviews of similar length. The interviews focused on problem solving and technical questions (as opposed to free-form questions like "What is your biggest strength/weaknesses?").
Interview Question –
The setup is that we are given a series of text files which contain information regarding a code repository's commits. Each file represents a single commit and they are formatted as follows:
"
Commit #: XXX
Author: XXX
Reviewer(s): XXX, XXX, ...
File: XXX
File: XXX
...
Date: XX:XX:XX XX/XX/XXXX
"
The commit number is unique and is generated in synchronous order. There is exactly 1 unique author. There are a variable number of reviewers, delimited by commas; if there are no reviewers, that line is absent from the file. There are a variable number of edited files in the commit, each receiving its own line. The time/date is when the commit was submitted.
First design a graphical model for all of the commit data. Then describe how this model is updated when a new commit is generated. Finally, write the code segment called when a new commit is generated which edits a system that has implemented your model of the data - its input is a file name and whatever necessary data structures that are maintained by your system.
Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Business Analyst at Google
No Offer – Interviewed in Los Angeles, CA Feb 2011 – Reviewed Oct 15, 2012
Interview Details –
The interview process was through the University on campus recruiting. The school shared a database of possible candidates for different functions based on interests and experience. From that, Google picked the people for interviews.
At the beginning a thought that the process was weird since the recruiters at Google were very inflexible with the interview hours and dates (considering that I was an student). But in the end I yielded since it is Google right? Probably they have a lot of people who want to work there. Then at the time of the interview (was by phone), the interviewer called me almost 40 minutes late and spent probably 30-35 minutes talking about himself and his projects. I was really expecting an interview where the interviewer was interested somehow in getting to know me more and who would have spend the 45 minutes we had for that call more wisely. But again, they are Google, right? They can do pretty much what they want. The rest of the time we basically spent it talking about my thoughts on a few of his projects and one business case.
Interview Question – The most difficult questions was regarding my understanding of the education industry and how I could help institutions to attract better people to the system (students) and why would that be better than bringing anyone who could pay the tuition in the long term. This question was more like a regular consulting business case with a very limited amount of time View Answer
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Contents Manager - Youtube/Google Play at Google
No Offer – Interviewed in Beverly Hills, CA Apr 2012 – Reviewed Oct 9, 2012
Interview Details –
- Applied online while also having a friend who knows a Googler submit a resume on my behalf
- Google recruiter called a couple days after and scheduled interview with 2 Googlers
- First interviewer asked standard behavioral questions
- Second interview was more youtube/Google Play specific, but interviewer was a bit awkward
Interview Question – Why is Google Play even in existence? Should it try and compete with iTunes? Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Senior Software Engineer at Google
No Offer – Interviewed in Venice, CA Sep 2012 – Reviewed Oct 2, 2012
Interview Details –
I was reach out to by Google recruiter from Mountain View with initial offer to interview there. I quite firmly declined since I don't intend to move and was passed on to LA based recruiter who after reviewing my CV informed me that they have openings locally that would fit my background. I must say that compared to my previous Google interview experience communication with HR was severely lacking with HR being constantly late to call (or not call at all). Since I did interview with Google in a past, we bypassed the phone screen and went straight for an on-site round of 5 interviews with lunch & facilities tour. I assume that it went fairly well, since week later I was told that my application will go forth to hiring committee. Yet another week and I was informed that there's really no good opening for me in Venice and if I would consider applying at Mountain View, which I yet again declined. After one more week of no news, I was informed that my application is dropped due to lack of proper fit for my background in my geographical location.
It would have saved everyone involved quite a bit of time, if my request for specific geographical location was treated seriously, from the get go. Spending 6 hours of time of engineering force, just to interview someone, you have no intention to hire, is probably not the most efficient use of the resources.
Interview Question – NDA prevents me from disclosing those. Algorithms 101 is a must. Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
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