Google Interview Questions & Reviews in San Francisco, CA Area
Updated May 17, 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 24 ratings |
Interview Experience [?] Based on 24 ratings
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Site Reliability Engineer at Google
Posted Sep 27, 2011
4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Apr 2011 in Dublin, CA (took 1 week)
I was contacted by a recruiter asking if i am interested in working at google and scheduled a phone interview.first round is a recruiter screen with basic unix/linux commands which went well.second interview is more technical,it included topics from networking,Tcp/ip protocols,RAID etc,They would dig little deeper as you keep answering.It ended with a writing a program in language of your choice.I chose perl.
3rd phone screen was mostly into Data structures and algorithms which required coding in C or Java.
implementation of hash tables and binary trees etc and more of open ended questions.3rd interviewer was hurrying up and did not give much time to think because you fail to answer the first question correctly.Overall it was a good experience.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Skills Test and a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Technical Account Manager at Google
Posted Jun 13, 2011 — 0 of 1 people found this helpful
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 Jun 2011 in San Bruno, CA (took 4 weeks)
I felt the recruiting/HR process was messy and my recruiter didn't communicate with me very well. I tried to ask questions along the way to help me prepare, but her responses were short and unprofessional. The phone interview was pretty average and lasted for maybe 30 minutes. I heard back within a few days to schedule an onsite interview with 3-4 people. I ended up only having 2 onsite interviews since the third person was on a vacation. My recruiter was a no show, so someone else helped me out. The technical interview felt off topic for the position and didn't go well. Overall, the process made me like Google less and I wonder how a company this big can have such a flawed process. After my messy onsite day, I was assigned a new recruiter who was very helpful, so I guess it was just bad luck! Since I like Google and the products, I'd apply again!
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Skills Test, a 1:1 Interview and a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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No
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Software Engineer at Google
Posted Mar 8, 2011
4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2011 in San Francisco, CA (took 2 months)
They called me 1 month after sending my resume. After a first phone screening, we set a date for a phone interview. The day of the interview no one called me at the expected time, what was lame. I had to call the recruiter and push them to call me again that day because I had taken the day off only to do the interview. Another guy from the Colorado office called me 3 hours later. The interview consisted of some questions and then writing some code in a interactive GoogleDoc based on two algorithms, and analyze it. I nailed everything but got stuck in the second implementation of the algorithm, what got me out.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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Financial Analyst at Google
Posted Mar 1, 2011
2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Feb 2011 in San Francisco, CA (took a day)
I just had 1 interview with the HR. Didn't get past that. She asked about my GPA both in undergrad and grad schools. Other questions:
1. Why Google?
2. Why this role?
3. About the previous role.
She said it was a very competitive position so it was important to highlight relevant "analysis" experience as much as possible. I couldn't get past this stage because it wasn't possible for me to join asap as they wanted.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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SRE at Google
Posted Jan 31, 2011 — 0 of 1 people found this helpful
4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Mar 2010 in San Francisco, CA (took 2 weeks)
Contacted by a recruiter on the phone, passed a few idiot proof screening questions, then was scheduled for an on-site interview consisting in 5 interviews, ranging from theory to coding on the white board.
Overall experience was OK, one interviewer wasn't really cool, the other folks were great. I have been pretty disappointed by the way the recruiters act (e.g: don't give you any response, you need to contact them to have feedback).
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Google
Posted Jan 18, 2011
3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2011 in San Bruno, CA (took 1 week)
I applied for the youtube job on their website and got a call after a week from their recruiter HR. Initially the HR forwarded me the wrong job profile. The job profile was for team lead and I am a developer. She asked me to study python for interview. Few days later, the other HR mailed me confirming the date for phone interview. This time she forwarded the correct job profile.
The interviewer called after 10 mins of scheduled time. Intially she mistook me for some other candidate. There was no formal introduction or description of the role or project. She seemed busy and she directly asked me if I am willing to work on php or python and Mysql.
And then she proceeded with questions.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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Associate Product Manager at Google
Posted Sep 9, 2010
4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Declined Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2008 in San Francisco, CA (took 4+ weeks)
Full on-site interview process with roughly 10 people, written essay, phone interview, culminating in a group scavenger hunt in San Francisco. Process was very thorough, but not intimidating; there are plenty of great Googlers involved with the process. Only criticism would be that it was a long, somewhat drawn out affair.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Background Check, a Personality Test, a Skills Test, a 1:1 Interview and a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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No
Inappropriate?
Product Marketing Manager at Google
Posted Aug 18, 2010 — 2 of 2 people found this helpful
3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jun 2010 in San Francisco, CA (took 3 weeks)
The arrogance of the people that I interfaced with at Google was off the charts. They act like they are founders of the company. I felt like telling my interviewer "are you kidding me, you have only been there for 1 year and think that you walk on water...get over yourself".
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Group/Panel Interview and a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
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No
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Web Developer at Google
Posted Jun 24, 2010
3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed May 2010 in San Francisco, CA (took 2 weeks)
I applied and followed up one week later to make sure they had my resume. A week after my follow-up, I received and email to set up a time for a phone interview. They asked me which programming languages I knew and a few basic (but confusing) questions about each language. They also asked about my experience and the classes I'd taken. They said they would follow up with an on-site interview if I got to the next step, which I didn't.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
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Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
AdSense Account Manager at Google
Posted Apr 20, 2010
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 Nov 2009 in San Francisco, CA (took 3 months)
- Google HR confirmed details of my resume, including college GPA
- Phone interview with team member
- On Site interview. 5 interviews back to back. this was a bit unorganized. i was put in a windowless conference room for the entire day. one interview was video conference. despite repeated requests to know who i might be meeting with i was not told. (my interviewers expected me to know, but HR would not tell me) there was essentially no opportunity for me to ask questions about the team, role, company overall. after this intense, unorganized, and unusual interview process, had it not been an interview with the all-powerful google, i would not have been interested in continuing the interview process. *even after the interviews, HR would not share my interviewer's full names or email addresses, i was forced to send my thank you notes to HR who promised to forward them on to my interviewers. very strange
- Phone interview, set up very last minute, with a change being made at the time the interview was to start - my interviewer was no longer available it would be someone subbing in
- Email responding that they would not be sharing an offer
*my expense reports were also wrongfully adjusted and I had to call around to have it corrected
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?


