I think it's my turn to give back to the wonderful leetcode community. I recently received an offer from Google. Following is my experience.

Journey

I have about 3.5 years of experience working as a Software Engineer. I actively started looking for Job 4 months back wherein I interviewed for Facebook and Google. I got rejected in onsite interviews of Facebook. I have solved around 110 questions on leetcode around 32 Easy 60 Medium and 20 Hard. I have found difficult implementing Hard level leetcode questions (to this date I still do).I didn't want to loose out on any of my options hence I purchased Leetcode premium which was definitely helpful for Facebook's preparation(All the questions I received in my phone screen and onsite were already part of Premium problems)although not that helpful for Google. I tried to solve problems on codeforces and topcoder back during my college days and was on and off with leetcode during past couple of months. In retrospect I should have tried to implement more problems on Leetcode as I have been scared of problems which involve heavy implementation :(

I had already interviewed with Google around 2 years back which went very bad according to the recruiter neverthless I was given one more shot.I thought I would share my Interview experience with Leetcode community below post summarises my Interview experience.

Interview Experience

Phone Screen (45 Minutes)

It was fairly easy question involving priority queue. I had already seen some similar questions hence wasn't difficult for me to come up with approach. The interviewer was happy with the approach and asked me to code it up which I did. Afterwards the interviewer found some syntatical errors in my code which I corrected immediately (nothing logical). I thought I did good.

The recruiter followed up and said the feedback was quite positive and I will move to onsite. She told me that there will be 3 Algo/DS round with 1 Algorithm Design round and 1 behavioural round. I scheduled my onsite after approximately 30 days of my phone screen.

**Onsite Interviews **

Round 1 (Googlyness)

I think the focus of this round is to eliminate false positives. I made sure to give examples for most of the questions. In retrospect I think this round went well although you can never tell :) .

Round 2 (Technical)

It was fairly easy question on rectangles. I made sure to ask some clarifying questions which helped me narrow down my approach. I could come up with n^2 solution in no time (which i think was the best possible approach). I coded the solution but the interviewer found 1 very small logical bug which I found and corrected. After which there was a follow up question for which I gave couple of different solutions although I am not sure if the interviewer was looking for some thing else. In retropspect I think this round was meh meh.

Round 3 (Technical)

I bombed this interview. It was so bad that after 25 minutes the interviewer gave up and asked me to code it up(I guess he wasn't even looking at the solution). The Question involved thinking along lines of Dp (2D dp Specifically). I was able to figure out the states quite early but it was the transition between the states which I had problem with. In retrospect this round was very bad. If I get denied it will be most certainly because of this round.

Round 4 (Algorithm Design)

The problem statement was quite easy to comprehend although I had to make sure what tradeoffs have to be considered before presenting an optimal solution and refining it further. After I clarified everything I made sure to put a brute force solution and then afterwards an optimal approach using Stacks. The interviewer asked me to code it up which I did. The interviewer looked happy with my code and no modifications was required in the code. The key in this round is to balance thinking part with coding part. In retrospect I think I did well in this round

Round 5 (Technical)

This was my best round. The problem statement was an easy graph problem which I recognized and gave the interviewer the most optimal solution. The interviewer seemed happy with my approach and I coded up instantly in C++. We still had around 15 mins left so there was a follow up question which I was able to explain but there wasn't any coding part involved. In retrospect I think I aced this round.

Post Interview

After 1 week the recruiter reached to me telling that my feedback was tending positive although it's mixed. I was well aware that this was bound to happen. I also have to talk to Managers from different teams this week for Team matching(although I am not sure if this will help Hiring Committee or not). Fingers crossed 🤞. I think I have like 20% chance since I completely bombed one of my interviews. What do you guys think ?

Update
Matched with a team now waiting for HC :)

Update

I cannot believe I got the offer :D :D