Software Development Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Google with 3.4 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 59% positive. To compare, the company-average is 61.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Development Engineer roles take an average of 25 days to get hired, when considering 134 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Google overall takes an average of 38 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Google as a Software Development Engineer according to 134 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 46%
One on one interview: 20%
Skills test: 14%
Presentation: 10%
Background check: 2%
IQ intelligence test: 2%
Drug test: 1%
Personality test: 1%
Group panel interview: 1%
Other: 1%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Google in Jan 2012
Interview
I earned my phone interview one week after I posted my resume for a particular job in youtube. First I received a 5-7 minutes phone call from HR, it was just about usual stuff, what I am doing currently and what I have done in the past. Then I scheduled with their HR person a 45 minute technical interview. The interviewer told me he is working in youtube. After 5 minutes of intro stuff about my previous work, he asked me to start writing on the shared doc. The problem he posed to me was not usual algorithm and data structure stuff. I found it really very hard, first to understand and then after few more minutes of his explanation, I still had little clue. I don't know if he was unable to make me understand or my brain was just blocked.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
We have a schedular. Timer is available to the schedular. The clients of this schedular want to call this schedular with 2 parameters, 1) time interval in ms 2) callback function. The schedular will invoke specified callback function after specified time intevals. Design data structure and implement it.
The interviewer was very nice, one interviewer didn't show up so I rescheduled it. When I didn't come up with the best solution, the interveiwer was very patient and give me hint as many as possible
1 screening round + 3 onsite round
All rounds were focused on DSA that included topics like strings, linked list, heap and dynamic programming. Screening round had 2 questions on qualifying which I was eligible for onsite and Googliness rounds. The whole process took nearlying 2.5 months
I applied in-person. I interviewed at Google (Bengaluru) in Apr 2026
Interview
Very competitive process which requires hard work and good preparation. DSA questions and real life problems divided into 4-5 rounds of interview including HR, Technical, Hiring manager rounds. Onsite interviews are going on