I am writing down the whole experience. As it might be useful for anyone aiming for google or any giant tech. I interviewed with them at the end of by 7th semester during undergraduation. (Currenlty I am in my 8th Semester)
A random evening, I recieved a call from a google recruiter. Firstly she apologied for calling up late evening. She said her team was impressed by my linkedin profile and wanted to reach out. Then she checked their database wherein I applied for an opening around 8 months back. So they got my contact details. She also said that for some candidates, they directly move to the onsite rounds rather than phone interview if the profile is impressive. And I was one of those!
I agree that I have a good prior project and internship experiences and have been contacted by many HRs through Linkedin. But GOOGLE was beyond by dreams. To be honest, at the first glance, I thought it was a prank call, so asked her to email me the job details for which they want to interview me. She did the same and schduled by interviews within next couple of days.
It was a long shot also, didn't had enough time for preparation. I tried to prepare mentally to face it though :)
All rounds are strictly of 45 mins. They hard stop there! Sharing all the rounds experience, won't share the exact questions as I have signed NOC.
Onsite ROUND -1
TECHNICAL ROUND
Interviewer was Senior SWE at Google. Didn't turn on his camera as he was having bandwidth issue. Started with his introduction followed by mine. Gave a question staight away. Based on doubly linked list. It was Easy to Medium level question.
I took some time to undersatnd it and then explained my approach. He asked about corner cases. After seemed satisfied, asked me to code it. I did it pretty fast, but then missed a corner case, he asked me to recheck, then I spotted it out.
Then he asked about my projects and had some discussion on prior internships. Interview ended with if I had any questions for him.
Onsite ROUND-2
Googlyness
Conducted by Senior Software Engineer at Google. Project Discussions and Behaviorial Questions to check if your values align with that of their's. Think and answer wisely.
Onsite ROUND-3
Technical Round
Interviewer was SWE at Google Cloud. She didn't introduced her nor asked for mine. She doesn't seemed friendly at all. I became a bit nervous. She jumped to DSA question. Just verbally gave a question something regarding git commits and asked my approach.
I tried to think and clearify the question. Then she wrote the question on the coding doc. I understood what she wanted to ask, I gave a binary search approach. She didn't interact much so I don't know if I was on right track. She said to code down whatever I explained. I did it. Then she asked me to explain my code, while I was doing, she doesn't reacted, so it was difficult for me to understand if I was able to make her understand what I wanted. She said, she got what I was doing and lets move to next question as only around 12 minutes to complete the 45 minutes session were remaining.
The next question was related to system streams of input. I clearified my doubts but since no sample test case was given, I was struggling to get what exactly is asked. I asked her if she can give me a sample test case. She did so. After looking at sample input I quickly thought of a dynamic programming solution. Explained it to her. She asked me to write the dp equation and complete the function as soon, because we didn't had enough time. She asked about complexity and what my dp vector does etc. The interview ended with any questions I had for her. I asked about her team,tech-stack and her post at Google as she didn't tell at beginning. Interview ended up with a thank you note.
I just had one more last round before making it to the hiring team.
I really had high hopes. But recieved an rejection mail. Was kinda dissappointed. I am losing my confidence now but anyway it was a long shot. People work for years to get a call from google. I consider making up to that far as my achievement.
Don't want to speak about it as it is dishearting to everyone. Rejections are difficult to digest but we all should take it in a positive way and work more harder.
LASTLY I WISH VERY BEST TO EVERYONE IN THEIR SEARCH!
