Google | SDE - Backend | Bengaluru | May 2021 [Reject]
Status: 2 YOE
Position: SDE at a midsize company
Location: Bengaluru, India
How I got the interview?
I reached out to a recruiter who had posted on linkedin that google was looking for backend developers. I sent the recruiter a cold email with my resume. I was almost certain this was a waste of time as most of the recruiters who I had sent such mails never replied back. But, this recruiter did. The recruiter set up a 30 min call just to know my background. We had a good talk about the projects im currently working on and about my experiences. After the call my phone screen was set up. They gave me suffeciant time to prepare. Truly, Google recruiters are a class apart. They gave me study material etc.
Phone Screen (2 weeks after the Recruiter Call): 45 mins
The inter viewer and I had a brief discussion for about 5 mins about my background and then we dove right into the porblem statement. It was a medium/hard string search and manipulation problem. Came up with a solution within 15 min. Wrote the code in the next 10 mins and ran one dry test case. The interviewer was very poker faced and didnt give out much. The question is going to be ambigous. Always discuss with the interviewer. Tell the interviewer whatever you are thinking. Google has their own interview notepad++ kind of thing and they dont use google docs anymore but its very similar. Just syntax highlighting will be there.
After a week of anxiety I got a call from my recruiter that I had cleared the phone screen round. I was super joyed. I was given another 2 weeks to prepare for the virtual onsite interview. They scheduled only 2 rounds of the onsite and said only if I cleared this the next 2 rounds would be unlocked.
Virtual On-site: 45 mins each
Round 1: The interviewer was little grumpy and dove straight into the question. It was 90% math problem and 10% DS/Algo problem. Question was related to changing probabilty based on an event occuring or not. And with each event occuring the probabilty of the event happening will change based on the circumstances in which it occured. So given a list of such events I needed to find the final probability of the event occuring.
By the time I recollected all the probabilty I learnt in high school and Pre University, half the time was up. The interviewer did help a little but still I was very blank. I started to freak out. By the time I orally solved the problem there was only 10 mins left. I could not complete the code. The interviewer just said that he got where I was going with the code and ended the interview.
Round 2: This interviewer was smiling and seemed like a nice person. She introduced herself and then we dove into the problem. She even explained the problem statement. It was more or less related to the card game SET, with a little variation. After going about the brute force way, I found a more optimal solution and she was happy with it. She asked me to code the solution I came up with. It took me 5 mins to write the code. She asked me a follow up question. It was on lines of what if a joker card was introduced the cards. It was a pretty simple variation. I told her the solution and she told me to make changes to the code. I did and the interview time was almost up. After that it was justa bunch of chit chatting and the the interview was done.
2 days later I got the call from the recruiter saying they are not moving forward with my profile. I honestly was expecting another round of interviews as my 2nd round went considerabaly well but sadly I didnt get any. I will update this post on the feedback I receive from the recruiter.
Preperation for me was just leetcode. I bought leetcode premium a while ago and I completed the google track. Dont let the tag of google scare you, it is honestly simpler than you think. Anyways will keep trying, on to more leetcoding.
PS: yes leetcode premium is worth it if you are seriously thinking of interviewing or if you have interviews lined up. If its is just pre job-applying interview prep then no need of premium.