I was contacted by a Google internship recruiter on August 23, 2024. After applying through their portal, I was fortunate to receive a referral as well.

Round 1: Recruiter Call (August 26, 2024)
The initial conversation was casual. The recruiter asked about my preferred programming language, CGPA, academic branch, graduation year, and the number of coding questions I had solved on LeetCode and other platforms. We also discussed my projects and other technical skills.

Technical Round 1: (September 2, 2024)
This round started directly with a DSA question. The first question involved maps and was easy to medium difficulty. I solved it in about 10 minutes. The follow-up was a more challenging problem that combined maps and priority queues, which I managed to solve within the next 30 minutes. The interviewer then asked me to explain the time and space complexity and discuss insertion and deletion in priority queues. I was confident since I completed both questions within the time limit and provided the necessary explanations.

On September 3, I received an email confirming that I had cleared the first technical round, and my next interview was scheduled for September 6. However, on the morning of September 6, I was notified that my interview had been rescheduled to September 11.

Technical Round 2: (September 11, 2024)
This round was tougher, and the interviewer had a stricter approach. He presented a graph-based BFS question (medium-hard difficulty). I walked through my approach, optimized it upon his request, and did a dry run, which seemed to satisfy him. As I started writing the code, he asked detailed questions about the parameters I used in my method, which I clarified. I finished the code with around three minutes left. Then, the interviewer shared a follow-up question. I explained my approach, to which he responded, "I have noted down your approach." The interview was over. We spent the last 10-15 minutes discussing extracurricular activities, and he seemed impressed by my resume.

On September 13, the recruiter requested my semester transcripts, which I took as a positive sign. However, despite everything seeming to go well, I received a rejection email on September 18, without any feedback on the reason.