Google Interview Questions &amp; Reviews in Zurich, Switzerland Area

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Reason for Declining

The HR twits kept phoning me as if I were their employee, told me to read five 800-page books, booked the most awkward flights they could (exactly the ones I *didn't* choose from the ones they offered and to cap it all wanted to borrow 500 euros from me to pay a 4-star hotel with a vague promise that I would be paid back in a few months' time if I sent the original receipts to IBM at an address in Poland (really!).

I just didn't get on the air plane.

Other Details

The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Aug 2010 in Zurich (Switzerland) (took 2 months)

There were 2 phone screens and 5 1:1 on-site interviews. All were very positive and friendly. On-site interview questions were gradually increased in terms of difficulty. This strategy allows for interviewers to figure out a candidate knowledge/experience upper limit.

Phone screen questions example:
1. You are given a sorted array that is cyclically shifted. Find a given number in log(N) time.
2. You are given BST-tree. Check its correctness.

Interview Questions

You are given 2 strings. Find all symbolls that are in both strings.

You are given a BST-tree. Find duplicated values.

Design cache with LRU policy. Elaborate on performance. O(1) time complexity was expected.

Other Details

I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.

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Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Received and Accepted Offer

Interviewed Mar 2012 in Zurich (Switzerland) (took 3 months)

The application process takes a long time. The process is publicly known and has been described several times on this site. I had 2 phone interviews.

The main issue is that each decision usually takes at least a week (after sending the CV, after an interview, waiting for the final decision, etc). However, the recruiter was really helpful by providing information about the process and how to prepare for the interviews. The interviewers were also very friendly and the 45min interviews felt like a nice conversation discussing a few problems.

I recommend reading the interview reviews on this site. The questions were similar to the ones posted here and it really helps to prepare your brain for the kind of reasoning you need during the interviews.

As a user posted here previously, I think that one of the main points of the interviews is to put some pressure and see how people (interviewees) react to difficult situations that may be out of their comfort zone. So, if you think you aced the interview and answered everything without a sweat, you probably missed the point of the interview (I had issues in both my interviews and it was ok).

Finally, HEAR the interviewers and especially their tips.

Negotiation Details

The offer was generous and I didn't need to negotiate.

Other Details

The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Jun 2011 in Zurich (Switzerland) (took 2 months)

First two phone (skype) interview with design and estimation problems. The design problems were also quite technical... Then in Zurich I had three consecutive interviews focused again on estimation and design... the design one also enough technical.

Interview Questions

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Other Details

I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Negative Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Jun 2011 in Zurich (Switzerland) (took a day)

Bad call quality prevented me to answer the questions properly.

Interview Questions

Text parsing problem, but not very well specified. Expected to create detailed specification and to solve problem.

Other Details

I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Sep 2011 in Zurich (Switzerland) (took a day)

After talking with a recruiter, a phone interview was arranged. I was asked a number of questions covering a a large area of telecommunications and networking. The questions were more focussed in layer 3 (IP and routing) than layer 1-2 where I was more experienced.

Interview Questions

Do you know what the IETF RFC 1918

Other Details

I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Jul 2011 in Zurich (Switzerland) (took 4+ weeks)

I had 2 phone interviews:
On the first one I was asked some stuff regarding C++, OS/Threading models and one algorithm

Went on to a 2nd phone interview which consisted of only one coding exercise. It was not hard but it was about something I hadn't worked on for a while and I failed!

Interview Questions

Describe inheritance, virtual, etc. in C++
Would you use threads or processes in this situation? Why?
Write an algorithm that...

Other Details

The interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Background Check.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

5.0

Very Difficult Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Jan 2011 in Zurich (Switzerland) (took 2 weeks)

Had 2 interview:
- First with recruiter very friendly and was asking mainly about my background
- Second was a technical one with a developer working at Dublin

Basic algorithm complexity analysis, and some basic algorithm design questions.

Was mainly array sorting in Java (was language of choice of the interviewer)

Miserably failed on complexity analysis and didn't go further.

Interview Questions

What's the complexity of insert in hashtable ?

View Answers (3)

Other Details

I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed May 2011 in Zurich (Switzerland) (took 2 months)

Initial contact from the recruiter was through email, requesting a phone call be scheduled, I was not in Zurich at that point so it was a matter of time zone juggling for us. Recruiter was friendly and knowledgeable and clear on the process. Asked some basic questions of me to confirm the basic truth in my CV.
Technical phone interview was scheduled, called me 1 hour early due to a inconvenient end of my home daylight savings time, but I was expecting that. Asked a couple of questions to do with algorithms on c strings, I didn't nail them and there was some hints required for basic things but I think I somehow expressed a rounded enough knowledge and got along with the guy well enough to get through.
A week later recruiter tried to contact me via phone to confirm my initial success, eventually through email arranged a call where I explained my expected arrival in Zurich through my own means where I could be onsite for the next interview.
After a few weeks I had another recruiter take over and it got a bit more confusing but eventually scheduled onsite interview in Zurich.

Onsite interview was scary but a pleasant day in the pretty intense google zurich office. The recruiters instructions weren't quite sufficient but I got in there on time. Had 5 1 on 1 interviews, each with nice relaxed, and definitely smart people. Problems ranged from java iterator tricks to search and design issues, some analysis of problems, I was always short of time as well. I only nailed perhaps 2 of the questions, and I also wonder if doing all my whiteboard coding in Java was wise when maybe Google wanted to be sure I was comfortable with different languages.
Anyway a week later, another scheduled phone call, and told based on the interviews and my CV there was no fit for me. I am welcome to try again, in a few years or when I have different skills. Ouch.

Interview Questions

Given a string of characters, find the character with the highest frequency.

View Answers (2)

Design a networked 'snake' multiplayer game. What are the problems and issues to be solved? When the network 'splits' I want the game to continue for all players.

Other Details

I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Jan 2011 in Zurich (Switzerland) (took 2 months)

Two telephonic interviews followed by onsite interview at Zirich

Interview Questions

Given a machine hangup how do you trouble shoot the problem, open ended.