Status / Position / Location:

I have an undergraduate degree and a MPhil, as well as about 3 years work experience. I live in Jamaica and there isn't a Tech Industry here, so even with three years work experience I feel as though my knowledge is severely lacking especially with system design.

The interview process is very different in Jamaica - we don't have technical interviews so I had no idea how to approach that and the pressures involved with it. The first time I logged on to Leetcode it was like a new world for me...getting up to par was not an easy process and I always knew in my heart that I wanted to go after Google...and I wanted to get it on my first shot... so I had a lot of catching up to do.

I actually failed a technical interview for a much smaller company (Ncino) just two months before starting my Google interview process. It was through failing that interview that I realised what a technical interview was and saw how different it is from the interview process in Jamaica. I also paid for a mock interview from a googler from one of the mock interview sites. I really recommend it. I'm not sure I would have passed the phone screen if i didn't do it.

I can give a lot more details... but i'll keep things short for now

The Interviews

Phone screen:

40 minutes. My interviewer was from the California office.

There were many technical difficulties with setting the call up (the call kept dropping, we couldn't hear each other etc.) and he didn't give me extra time to make up for the time lost due to technical difficulties. I solved two questions, had to test them, talk about complexity and then answer some questions he had

I had very positive feedback and he told my recruiter I could skip the second phone screen and go straight to the on site interviews yay

On site:
(I did my on sites at the California office in June 2018)

First I will list some difficulties:

1. At the time most of my experience was as a front end developer, I hardly did any server side. My phone screen was done in JavaScript but my recruiter told me that moving forward I would have to use Java. At the time I had basically ZERO Java experience so that was a big stumbling block
2. Even though I was not interviewing for a office in the USA I had my interviews in the USA. This decision was made by considering visa issues and jet lag. My recruiter told me I could get a visa for whichever country I was interviewing in but it would take weeks (delaying my interview date) since i already had a visa for the USA I decided to o with that. The interview process might vary slightly though from location to location (see below).
3. After learning Java and getting good enough to attempt a Google interview in it I had the mountain of System Design to overcome. My recruiter told me in January 2018 that this interview was actually replaced with a "Googliness" interview - I was soooo happy. However, this seemed to hold true for the London office but not the California one plus I was attempting Level 4 not 3... so I ended up doing the System Design interview
4. I missed my connecting flight because I got pulled for extra security in Miami. So annoying. Definitely put at least one day in between your landing date and interview date so you can destress and also have leeway incase of any flight mishaps!
5. I assumed Uber would work for me...but it wouldn't accept my card. I planned to Uber to my interview location. I think my interview started at 9 so I planned to call the uber at 8...just to find out it would not work...I started getting flustered. I went to the front desk and asked them to call a taxi. The taxi said it would be at least 20 minutes for him to reach the hotel and then we would head out to Google. Im freaking out a little because that's cutting it close (they ask that you reach 15 minutes early to "register" took me like 1 minute to register though). I'm waiting outside the hotel... 20 minutes.. 30 minutes..they call back the cab company and they cannot find the driver. At this point i'm going to be late - Look seriously make sure your ride is sorted out from the night before. The hotel they put me in actually had a shuttle to the google building ..ugh..if only I had asked. Anyway the shuttle driver felt sorry for me and transported me...the taxi never showed up

I had 5 rounds of on site interviews excluding lunch. It was grueling. At one point I was literally out of breath. Just back to back to back...it is mentally exhausting but I had so much coffee that it didn't hit me until my last interview.

A mistake I made was choosing lunch at a location far away from my interview..this campus is huge. We almost had to run back to the interview room. I was out of breath and disoriented making the first interview after lunch a bit of a struggle

There were 4 coding interviews and 1 System Design. Surprisingly, the system design was my second interview that threw me for a bit of a loop only because I expected it to be my last interview of the day so I kinda mentally prepared for that...I just kinda like to know what to expect and when

A note on travel:

There is a team that calls you and books all your flights and the hotel for the interview. The hotel suite was amazing - of course I was way too nervous to enjoy it.

You get $50 a day budget for food and drink (nothing alcoholic) and you have to send in all your receipts to be refunded. So you pay for your food and taxis and then after you are refunded.

The refund process has been annoying for me. A third party handles it and the site is broken in some parts. Their customer service is good but i hate logging on to the stupid portal.

To be refunded you can get a cheque or wire transfer. Both with downsides:

1. If you get a cheque they warn you it is likely to get lost in the mail and they keep cancelling it and attempting to resend
2. If you get a wire transfer they do not refund any bank charges associated with it. For Jamaica, that's a $40 fee

After the Interviews:

Within 4 days my recruiter contacted me to let me know I passed the interviews. I was so excited. He said I now had two options (by the way, I have had 6 recruiters through this process):

1. I could go straight to hiring committee
2. I could try to find a team that wants me, and get a statement of support to add to my profile before going to hiring committee to *** my profile - passing the interviews are great...but hiring committee will reject you

I have since gotten the offer YAY and there is more to think about even after passing hiring committee but i'll leave it here for now.

BTW Leetcode questions helped BIG TIME. I did a paid subscription, although I am undecided as to if that was necessary. I did the Google course they had (some of it) but I then reverted to just doing questions on random