**YOE** - 1.5-2\n**Position**: Software Engineer L3\n**Location**: Bangalore\n**Background**: B.Tech in CSE from one of the older IITs, worked as a quant in a reputed HFT firm\n\n**Interview -**\n\nPhone Screen: 1 leetcode hard problem - BFS with a trick, one of the popular leetcode story problems. Was able to solve it optimally in the alloted time.\n\nRound-1 : Hard backtracking problem involving a grid. Was able to give a solution approach and code it up. It had a few bugs though. Recruiter informed that the feedback from interviewer was borderline.\n\nRound-2 : Data Structure design for a particular use case(medium-hard). Was able to finish up but required 1 small hint from interviewer. I would say my performance was average here.\n\nRound-3 : 1 leetcode medium problem with 1 follow up(hard). Solved it optimally and explained my approach. I used a trick here which the interviewer asked to explain and I was able to dive deep into it. This was the best round.\n\nRound-4 :  Tree based question(medium) with a follow up(medium). Was able to solve it optimally within time inspite of some elongated resume based discussions at the beginning of round\n\nRound-5 : Googleyness round.\n\nRecruiter was very helpful and informed me beforehand that it was 90% confirmed that I would get an offer based on feedback. I was interviewing for both L3/L4 positions but L4 was difficult with this performance. I could have given it a shot with 2 additional rounds but I didn\'t want to get into a senior position without any prior experience in product based firms. I was picky about the role I wanted, so took some time in the team matching process until I was fully satisfied. The folks at Google were very helpful throughout the process.\n\n\n**My Preparations**\nI solved 400+ leetcode questions - medium and hard. I maintained G-sheets for all questions grouped by paradigms and revised them periodically. Along with that, I also used the resources at Leetcode discussions page to make personal notes which helped me a lot(the trick in round 3 was picked from there). The aim was not to solve all questions but to solve all paradigms. I had heard Google rarely repeats interview questions, but still practicing google tagged questions was helpful and gave me a confidence boost. Apart from that, general principles like good quality code and modular programming also help, both in interviews and prep.\n\nCompensation details: https://leetcode.com/discuss/compensation/1612850/Google-or-L3-or-Bangalore

YOE - 1.5-2\nPosition: Software Engineer L3\nLocation: Bangalore\nBackground: B.Tech in CSE from one of the older IITs, worked as a quant in a reputed HFT firm\