Google Interview Experience

Hello Everyone,

I've prepared for just 2 weeks from Leetcode and AlgoExpert ( As I wanted to have that Timer / StopWatch ). Not to hide, I have benefitted a lot through the discuss section. Let me now try to help the community by sharing my experience.

From where did I get this opportunity:

Recruiter pinged me on Linkedin in February and asked me "Are you looking for a carrer Switch" ? I told her why not and asked for 2 - 3 weeks of preparation time.

I preponed the date by 2 - 3 days because I wanted everything to be over before my Birthday.

Phone Screen Round:

"We don't do this here". - RIP Chadwick Boseman
Recuriter was happy with my coding profile and we both were happy to skip this round altogether.

Quick OverView :

I practised on AlgoExpert and re-coded most of my LC AC submissions. I have not completed even 1 year with my current company, So I am kinda fresher. During my College time I achieved 5 star at CodeChef, almost CM on CodeForces, Under 1000 rank at LC.

Round 1:

Interviewer was an Engineer from Zurich. Asked a question on queues and sets. I solved it through Segment Tree for better Time Complexity. He was expecting other solution which took less time at some places but far worse at one place, whereas mine had the same Time Complexity everywhere. At the end I dry ran a test case. I took all the time (around 46-48 mins) in this approach as I had to code Max Segment Tree. His feedback was good but not the best. He mentioned the Time Spillage.

Round 2:

Interviewer was a Manager from New York. This was the easiest interview of my Life. The question was so easy that the answer was of only 12 characters. He gave a follow up after 5 mins were consumed in the interview. This time the order of elements was required to be preserved. I solved it again and then he gave me the final follow up (Preserve kth order). I solved that one too. The interview was over within 22 minutes. The interviewer was extremely happy with me. He gave a very good feedback for me.

Round 3:

Interviewer was an Engineer from Zurich. He started with an easy question to warm up. We discussed and solved it within 10 mins and moved to the actual problem. It was a string question with mappings. He then gave me a follow up of it and I solved that one as well ( At this point around 25-30 mins passed). He then gave me one more follow up (This follow up was pretty similar and I used the previous sub - code to solve this one) and I solved it by consuming all the remaining time. The question required understanding of two - pointers, Maps and strings. He asked me to dry run the given example and I did it.

The feedback was not that good as he mentioned that the time was over. The engineer was not a native English Speaker so be prepared to face something like this.

Round 4:

Interviewer was again from Zurich. Asked a Trie question. I solved the question. I was trying to return something wrong initially but I corrected it after he told me to do so. He then gave me a follow up for it and I solved that one too. I took some time for the 1st follow up and then in the end he gave one more follow up. This time I took more time. I solved the question at the end but according to him writing much stuff in one line was not good and he mentioned the same in my feedback. He seemed not so impressed by the way I wrote the recursion but was impressed by my deep explanation of every single thing.

Round 5: Googlyness Round

Interviewer was a Engineer from Zurich again ( What The Hell ). Easiest and Boring round with hypothetical questions for checking the behaviour. You could give imaginary answers as to what you would do in such a situation or you could answer with your own working experience. He was happy with the fact that I made a quip document and suggested it to the managerial staff in my company so that the onboarding task is not hard for freshers. He mentioned that whatever I answered was good according to him.

My Guess For FeedBack of Rounds :
1st Round : Hire
2nd Round : Strong Hire
3rd Round : Hire
4th Round : Lean to Hire
5th Round : Hire

Recruiter told me that the first and third interview were ok to good. The last one was average to ok. But, the second one was the best. According to her it was the best she has seen . She moved me to team matching stage. I had a call with a Team. I didn't wait for anymore team matchings (Neither did she). She moved my packet to the HC and I got the confirmation within 2 days that I have done it.

Google is Conquered !

Learning
Practicing LC medium to hard and keeping an eye on the time is the key to success for Google.

I want to mention that I have taken a lot of stuff from here as I hate writing a lot.

Compensation Post