I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Cambridge, MA) in Nov 2012
Interview
I was contacted by a recruiter from Google over a year ago when I wasn't in the job market. This year, when I entered the job market, I got back in touch with him, and he set things up for me.
Since I work right next to the Google office in Cambridge, they skipped phone interviews and I was invited for an onsite interview directly. There were five technical interviews that covered coding, algorithm design and analysis, software design, and system design
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
My most difficult question was on system design. I have been in academia until now, and so thinking about enterprise-style system-design and scalability issues was very difficult for me.
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