YOE : 5 years
Current Organization : FinTech MNC
Title : Senior Software Engineer
This was my first Google interview. Recruiter contacted me via email in July. Google is actively recruiting for GCP. Recruiter pitched me GCP team and said the interview process for GCP is 3 Coding Interviews + 1 Googlyness. Whereas, the other teams have the standard 4 Coding Interviews + 1 Googlyness. I wanted to try for all teams, so asked the recruiter to conduct the standard interview process.
I needed some time to prepare. So I asked the recruiter to schedule the telephonic interview after 2 months in September. After 2 months of prep, I started giving my interviews.
All rounds are for 45 mins. Google gives emphasis on code quality, sanity, variable names, modularity, communication.
Preliminary Round - Online Telephonic round
Q1 - Lexicographically smallest subsequence of length K.
This was a simple stack based question, However I gave a DP solution, which was inefficient.
Result - Bad feedback.
Recruiter called and shared the feedback. At that point, I thought all was lost. However, Recruiter was kind enough to schedule a second telephonic interview. I took another 2 weeks to prepare more to give my best.
Preliminary Round 2 - Online Telephonic round
Find the least price to travel from a node u to node v ( if the path exists) in a unweighted undirected graph - BFS traversal.
Follow up : If each weight signifies the security level of passing from node x to node y, then find the minimum security level you want to travel from node u to node v.
Result - Good feedback. Qualified for the onsite interview.
I took another month to prepare for my onsite interviews. Took LC premium subscription as I was also preparing for Facebook and Uber interviews.
Facebook Interview Experience - https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-experience/1658404/Facebook-or-E4-or-London-or-Virtual-Onsite-or-November-2021-Reject
Uber Interview Experience - https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-experience/1639865/Uber-or-L4-or-Bangalore-or-India-or-Virtual-Onsite-or-November-2021-Offer
Virtual Onsite 1 - Coding Round
Q1 - Similar to https://leetcode.com/problems/number-of-boomerangs/. Solved this question with lots of time to spare.
Result - Got a good feedback. Strong Hire for L4.
Virtual Onsite 2 - Coding Round
Q1 - Similar to this question - https://leetcode.com/problems/longest-string-chain/
Solved this question in the given time. Got a good feedback in this round. Strong hire for L4.
Virtual Onsite 3 - Coding Round
Q1 - Similar to https://leetcode.com/problems/bulls-and-cows/.
Follow up was lengthy, asked me to write code to check if the next guess is valid based on the previous hint.
Feedback for this round was mixed, Lean hire for L4.
Virtual Onsite 4 - Coding Round
Q1 - Similar to https://leetcode.com/problems/meeting-rooms-ii/
Solved it well with in time, was asked to write unit tests as I had time to spare. Overall feedback was good for this round, Strong hire for L4.
Virtual Onsite 5 - Googlyness Round
Questions about my work and past lessons, around leadership principles. Why I did, what I did. What would I do under these situations. Use STAR method to approach these questions. Standard Googlyness round.
Result - Hire for L4.
The recruiter came back after 10 days, with the good news I wanted to hear. HC decided to offer me the L4 role. Overall, the feedback was good and in alignment with L4 standards.
Experience - The interview process was standard, structured and properly orchestrated. The coding interviews were on the easier side. Leetcode definitely helps. Preparing company based questions definitely increase your chances of cracking.
You can find my offer details here - https://leetcode.com/discuss/compensation/1658953/Google-or-L4-or-SDE-2-or-Bangalore-or-India-or-Accepted
My preparation journey - https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-experience/1664001/FAANG-Preparation-Journey