Collected publicly shared Google SWE interview reports from 2026 (Glassdoor, Blind, LC Discuss). The coding rounds are getting pretty predictable. Sharing what I found:
1. Graphs are the #1 topic this year. LC 200 (Number of Islands) shows up as an opener — but the real test is the follow-up with dynamic constraints added mid-round. Grid traversal with extra state (movement depending on where you came from) and ranking-from-pairwise-results (topological reasoning) also appeared.
2. DP with an optimization arc. Start with a DP formulation, then the interviewer pushes you to the bottleneck and expects a binary-search solution. LC 410 (Split Array Largest Sum) is the textbook example — DP is O(n²k), expected answer is binary search + greedy check.
3. Trie + HashMap combos. One August report described a medium-hard Trie problem combined with hash maps that earned a Strong Hire. Practice the two together, not in isolation.
4. Union-Find correctness, not just usage. Interviewers dig into path compression, union-by-rank, and alternative traversals.
Confirmed sightings (explicitly named in 2026 reports): 200, 416, 174, 410, 128, 346, 315, 2188. Safest bets for prep.
One honest caveat: dated first-hand reports from the last few months are scarce — most of what's public is pattern-level, not exact questions. Don't trust anyone selling "the exact 2026 question list."
