Status: New grad, Dual Degree (B.Tech & M.Tech), Electronics & Communication Engineering, IIT Kharagpur
Position: L3 Google
Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan
Date: November 2021

Background:

I am a final year undergraduate enrolled in the Dual Degree (B.Tech and M.Tech) course from the Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering department at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. At the end of my third year, I decided not to continue working in Circuits. Then I started learning Data Science. After some time, I realized that it is essential to be good at Data Structures and algorithms even to get good data science job. Gradually I learnt programming. Presently, I have a 1900+ rating in one of my codeforces account and solved over 700 problems in Leetcode. Apart from that, I have solved Interviewbit completely and presently, and I have the highest point among all students of IIT Kharagpur. My best rank in Kickstart is 120. And I enjoy competitive programming. This summer, I had worked with Adobe Research, Bangalore.

Interview Experience:

I was trying to explore off-campus opportunities, specifically in overseas locations. I learned about an opening in Google Taiwan for a new grad from a LinkedIn post. Then I applied to it through the Google Career page. On the same day, I responded from HR that she was interested in my profile and would like to proceed with the interviews.'

The interview process can be divided into 4 stages -

1. Screening Round ( 1 Round Coding Interview )
2. Virtual Onsite ( 4 Rounds Coding Interview + 1 Googleyness Round)
3. Final Review
4. Team Matching

Screening Round:

The interviewer asked a standard question on BFS, and there were some follow-up questions. I solved all of the questions very quickly as I practised writing codes on google docs with proper coding style. Hence, I passed this round very quickly. In the evening, I heard back from the recruiter saying that I cleared this round and will be moving to virtual onsite.

Virtual Onsite:

I had given some time to prepare for. But, I was ready, so I appeared for the virtual onsite round within a few days of the screening round. In virtual onsite, there was a total of 5 rounds.

1. Googleyness: Standard situational based questions were asked. Before this round, I googled most of the questions asked and prepared answers following the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Reward) framework. I strongly recommend taking this round seriously because you can't get out by Kedar Jadhav after hitting Bumrah and Shami for sixes.
2. Coding Round 1: Optimizing an expression and some follow-ups. I won't disclose the exact question as I am not permitted to do so. I have solved this question using the sliding window technique. The interviewer was very much satisfied in this round.
3. Coding Round 2: Knapsack based question. I have completely solved this question. But, I feel that I should have written simple codes, i.e. I was using some different conditions that can be generalized.
4. Coding Round 3: It was a very tough round. I tried to solve it with a different approach than the interviewer thought. But, after some time, I asked for hints from the interviewer and changed my approach. In the end, I have solved that question. But, I have missed some edge cases.
5. Coding Round 4: Graph-based DP. I had already solved this type of question several times in Leetcode. So, I cleared this round with ease.

Final Review:

I was asked to submit 2-5 reference letters from Google employees. I knew one of the seniors and a batchmate working at Google. I asked them from reference letters. And, they agreed to provide it.
During this hiring committee review, panellists look through your code in every detail. This round took more than two weeks. And I cleared the hiring committee review.

Team Matching:

I got team matching requests from three teams -

1. ChromeOS
2. Pixel
3. Silicon SWE

I had a fit talk with the pixel team. He first explained to me what his team does and the expectations from me. A few days later, the recruiter told me that he was ready to accept me into his team, and I got an offer from Google Taiwan.

Tips:

1. Be very good at algorithmic problem-solving.
2. Practice writing codes following proper coding style without IDE. This is very important. Most students ignore it, but it is crucial in acing interviews.
3. Be patient. It is a very long process. I wish if Google could make this process faster.

Others

I also got an offer from Graviton Capital Research, which is algorithmic trading company based out of Gurgaon, India.