Google Interview Questions & Reviews in Mountain View, CA
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Updated May 28, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
Ratings are reflective of location and job title.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 373 ratings 
“Difficult” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 373 ratings
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Site Reliability Engineer at Google
Posted Oct 28, 2011 — 0 of 1 people found this helpful
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 in Mountain View, CA (took 3 weeks)
Ever since I joined LinkedIn, I've been receiving emails from Google recruiters. I replied to the first one saying that as I'm an established contractor with my own company its difficult to switch to permanent employment. The emails kept coming in on a monthly basis. After around a year, I was on the look out for something different so I decided to look into it. The job description looked interesting and matched the work I'd been involved with in the previous years.
I had the initial pre-screening which had some technical questions and we discussed the role a little.
A week later I was offered a technical phone interview. It started with one question, which kept getting expanded until it covered a wide range of topics. It was clear they were after someone who knew how to approach a new problem, rather than someone who had memorized a bunch of commands suitable only for a particular situation. I felt it went really well, except at the end when I made some silly mistakes, but it was 10pm on a Friday, so I'm sure most people wouldn't be completely switched on at that point. Over all the interview was positive - it was relevant to my skills and the questions were fair.
A few more days passed and I got an email saying that they don't have any jobs which match my qualifications, with the usual "thank you for your interest in our company etc.." Not knowing what that really means, I wrote back asking for a reason, and feedback on the technical interview. I explained where I thought I went wrong, and asked if that was the issue. I only got another email thanking me for my interest in the company and to try again in a few months.
As I only had the technical interview, I was expending something like... "we need someone with more experience/knowledge in xxx", or "someone who has used xxx for xxx years". I did get the impression from the emails that there actually was no job available which was waiting to be filled, but they are constantly on the lookout - in the same was that job agencies sometimes post bogus jobs on job boards to get candidate information, and find out where gaps are in the job market.
I fail to see how applying again in a few months will change things as I'm not sure what went wrong, so will probably make the same mistake again, unless asked exactly the same questions.
Interview Questions
I will not write the question
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Google
Posted Oct 17, 2011 — 2 of 2 people found this helpful
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2011 in Mountain View, CA (took 4 weeks)
After recruiter's phone call with general organizational questions, I had short technical phone interview.
Interviewer was late for 10 minutes, thus we talked only 30-35 min. For this time he was able to ask me not very much: some of my previous experience, most difficult bug I've faced recently, and one technical question with coding in shared doc. After that he let me to ask him something about google. He answered one question and finished interview, so I had no change to fund out everything I planned. Also I had a feeling, the guy was not interested to be there, coz he was not leading me through resolution process and talked very little. Also his communication skills could be better - I hardly understood his questions in Indian English and asked to repeat several times. Google should sent better skilled and more open English speakers to interview, IMHO.
I successfully resolved technical coding question in two different ways (time and memory efficient) with commenting my resolution thoughts, but have got negative response from recruiter in 1 week.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Background Check.
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Inappropriate?
APM at Google
Posted Oct 21, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 in Mountain View, CA (took 4+ weeks)
They asked for more background information then gave the phone interview 2 weeks later.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineering Intern at Google
Posted Oct 14, 2011 — 2 of 2 people found this helpful
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Dec 2009 in Mountain View, CA (took a day)
My recruiter was very friendly. She was a little slow to respond to emails, but it wasn't too bad.
The technical interviews were fairly easy.
After the technical interview, there were project interviews. These were just to determine whether or not I would be interested in a given project; it was for my benefit more than theirs.
I ended up turning down their offer the first year to take an opportunity programming for public health in Cambodia, but they told me that I could go with them the following year without having to repeat the technical interview.
The next year, my recruiter connected me with a project in Google.org that I accepted.
Interview Questions
/*How many ways can you make change given the following denominations? ie, if numCentsToMake is 6 and denominations is [25, 10, 5, 1], then it should return 2: either a nickel and a penny or 6 pennies.*/
int numWaysToMakeChange(int numCentsToMake, int[] denominations)
This was the last question. They had me implement it on my own and send it back to them.
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Skills Test and a Phone Interview.
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Operation Analyst at Google
Posted Oct 18, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jun 2010 in Mountain View, CA (took 4+ weeks)
Interesting but the position did not fit my background
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Patent Docketing Specialist at Google
Posted Oct 11, 2011
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5.0
Very Difficult Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2011 in Mountain View, CA (took 2 weeks)
I applied online and was interviewed on the phone twice. The first interview consisted of 1 question. The woman who interviewed me was 20 minutes late calling in and then was rude and short on the call. The second interview lasted about an hour. Again, the man interviewing was late calling in and VERY rude and short. The interview was very difficult and they make you feel very stupid.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Skills Test and a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Google
Posted Sep 16, 2011 — 10 of 11 people found this helpful
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Aug 2011 in Mountain View, CA (took 2+ months)
I've been contacted by their recruiters every 6 months or year for the past 6 or 7 years. Finally I was in the right place in my career to actually interview there, so I agreed.
The first step was a phone interview. The recruiter suggested a whole lot of studying material. I kinda skimmed "Programming Interviews Exposed", but I don't think it really made much of a difference at any point in the interview process. I feel like you either know your CS fundamentals or you don't and reading a book about them at the last minute isn't going to help much. Maybe I'm wrong.
This is my best tip for interviewing!: don't just discount your first answer because you think it's "too obvious"! It very well might be the right answer, and now you'll be lost searching for an even better answer that doesn't exist! If you think it's not right, just say "there might be a better way to do this, but I'm just brainstorming", and then explain what you're thinking. If there's a better way to do it, they'll let you know. I made this mistake twice in my interviews.
First there was a 45 minute phone interview. It was just two questions, one coding, and one more conceptual. It was pretty straightforward. The coding one was just something basic like implementing a binary search with a few tweaks.
Despite all the scary things people say, I felt like the in-person interview wasn't especially difficult, but I probably just lucked out with the group of interviewers I pulled. My friend told me he knows a ton of really smart people who didn't pass the in-person, so I shouldn't take it personally if I didn't either. That helped me relax and realize I just had to go in there and do my best and see what happened. I wasn't really nervous then and the interview mostly just felt like I was discussing interesting problems with co-workers. I think being relaxed really helped me get the job, so if you can... chill out. :)
Then things got really boring. At this point, it had been six weeks since I first started talking to the recruiter. Within three days, I was told that I'd passed the hiring committee. And after the I didn't get the offer for FOUR AND A HALF MORE WEEKS. That's 2.5 months total. The recruiter was very nice and apologetic about the whole process, but I feel like they need to do something to speed it up. It was a frustrating experience, knowing I'd passed the hiring committee and was probably hired, but then things just kept getting held up for weird reasons passing through all the other processes.
When the offer finally came, however, it was a good offer and I accepted immediately.
Negotiation Details
I didn't negotiate because the offer was above what I was hoping for. (I know I probably should have negotiated anyway, but I wimped out.)
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Background Check, a 1:1 Interview and a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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Inappropriate?
Communications Associate at Google
Posted Sep 29, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jul 2011 in Mountain View, CA (took a day)
Contacted within a week of applying for a job. Was told it would be 30 minute interview, so I prepared for three days learning all I could about Google. Get the call and it last four minutes. Not only did he not explain the position at all, he asked me two questions to verify my GPA in my major and an explanation of a job. He then asked if I liked technology. He finished by asking me to send him an email of articles I've written in bullet point form. And that's it. Haven't heard back, despite a few follow-up emails. Overall, a really discouraging process.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Legal at Google
Posted Sep 29, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Received and Declined Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2011 in Mountain View, CA (took 4+ weeks)
They are very into skills. They quizzed me on the phone in one of my 3 phone screens about random knowledge. Eg., they asked me acronyms to see if I knew what they stood for. Very quick stuff so I couldn't look it up on the internet. But very pedantic. Then, on site, they gave me a bunch of hypos - each meeting had 2 people who worked there - and one would ask the question and the other would write down comments on the laptop. Very much had the feel of an oral exam. Very skills/knowledge oriented and little to no focus on cultural fit.
Interview Questions
Reason for Declining
Didn't want to move to Mountain View, CA.
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a Group/Panel Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
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Inappropriate?
Operations Analyst (Contract) at Google
Posted Sep 26, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2011 in Mountain View, CA (took 1 week)
Applied for job online, did not know it was contract. Was emailed and then contacted by recruiter for initial phone screening. She was very nice and set up my phone interview with the hiring manager.
Went to campus, chatted about my background and then he pulled out some questions. Very nice guy, awesome atmosphere, its google...
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
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