THE GOOGLE coding INTERVIEW

GOOGLE INTERVIEW PROCESS

Take a deep dive through the Google interview process and learn all about what to expect in this comprehensive insider guide to the Google Interview process.

READ ABOUT THE PROCESS

THE GOOGLE INTERVIEW PROCESS

GOOGLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Explore some of the most commonly asked Google questions and get detailed solutions. Get a leg up on your competition in the interview!

SEE COMMON QUESTIONS

what are people saying about working at google?

PROS

CONS

There a huge diversity of work ranging from defending independent journalism worldwide (Google Project Shield) to crisis response during disasters (see Maps during Hurricane Sandy or Tsunamis), to the best machine learning experts and projects in the world, to more mundane revenue-driving projects in advertising, there's really something for everybody.

Work life balance can be what you want it to be on most teams. (Some teams are in more competitive sectors and require more crazy hours all the time - but very few of them). If you do what's expected, you'll be fine at least for a handful of years. Working a roughly 40 hour work week is possible, and many people do it.

It is becoming larger, and with it comes growing pains: bureaucracy, slow to respond to market threats, bloated teams, cross-divisional tension

Chaotic; cancelled products and staffing changes on teams

Infrastructure is somewhat unique and may not be transferable to other companies

Bureaucracy has been over the top for a while now. The number of hoops you need to jump through to release a new project is crazy. I guess it makes sense for such a large company, but still not a great situation to be in.

“You should know at least one programming language really well, preferably C++,

Java, Python, Go, or C. You will be expected to know APIs, Object Orientated Design and Programming, how to test your code, as well as come up with corner cases and edge cases for code. Note that we focus on conceptual understanding rather than memorization.”

“Consider if a problem can be applied with graph algorithms like distance, search, connectivity, cycle-detection, etc. There are three basic ways to represent a graph in memory (objects and pointers, matrix, and adjacency list) — familiarize yourself with each representation and its pros and cons.”

“After your interviews are done, independent hiring committees made up of Googlers at various levels of the company review your candidate packet, which includes your interview feedback and scores, your resume, references, and any work samples you submitted. Hiring committees help make sure we’re holding true to our hiring standards as we grow.”

“In most organizations, you join and still have to prove yourself. At Google, we’ve all gone through the same hiring process and know we can trust in each other and new team members from day one. Welcome aboard.”

what Googlers have to say about interviewing?

*All quotes obtained from Google Interview site

VIDEO: HOW TO PREPARE FOR A GOOGLE ENGINEERING INTERVIEW

what are people saying about the interview?

“Recruiter was very helpful, but the whole process can take a few weeks. Usually 4-5 technical interviews about algorithms and data structures. Each one gave a problem with a specific question but it develops several concepts. Be sure to think out loud and start from something simpler if you are stuck. Pretend the interviewer is your colleague. Spend some time beforehand practicing code on a site like hackerrank.com so that you are comfortable writing code on command.”

“Google's actively seeking software engineers so it's not difficult to get an interview, but don't let that trick you into believing the interviewing process is easy. They're looking for engineers that have both good analytical and design skills. Once you're set up with a recruiter, he'll be your point of contact in terms of scheduling interviews. You'll first be given a phone interview and if you pass that, they'll bring you on-site for several 1:1 interviews.”

“Interviewer called and directly asked question about binary search, then he asked about the complexity of the algorithm and ask me if I can come up with better solution. There will a shared document to write code so you are not able to run your program to get an idea what is going wrong”

*All quotes obtained from Glassdoor