I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Austin, TX) in Sep 2018
Interview
The process is long and convoluted and really depends a lot upon the mood of the 1 person that is interviewing you. They utilized Google Hangouts for the entire process, which was plagued with technical glitches. The first couple interviews went well. However, I could tell within 30 seconds of my last interview that I was not going to get good feedback, just by reading the body language of the interviewer. Which, probably had little to do with me, but likely was due to his mood and that he didn't feel like interviewing someone 3 timezones away on a Friday afternoon. After that interview I was actually hoping they weren't interested in continuing. Because , with the exception of one person, everyone I spoke with had a seemingly condescending sneer on their face. Sometimes you just get a feeling that you wouldn't want to work somewhere and I had that with Google. No matter how cool they make it seem, at some point, I realized it would be like working on a reality show with a boatload of self absorbed narcissists.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The person asked a lot of questions about Hadoop: what is it, how does it work, what is map reduce. Asked me to describe how to build an end to end application to run a business similar to *hulu* with cloud components.
It was my perception of the recruiter that left me feeling not worthy of selection. I resorted to not asking the recruiter questions because when I did they would respond abruptly. I wasn't successful in the selection process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you build Snapchat on Google Cloud Platform?
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 months. I interviewed at Google (Austin, TX)
Interview
Process took over 4 months. Recruiter reached out to me via LinkedIn.
Interviews:
Interview #1: Recruiter screening:
Just asked few questions about my background, explained the role, location, comfortable timings, etc,. Scheduled 3 interviews back to back.
Interview #2: Role related
Interview #3: Leadership
Interview #4: GCA
Got a call from the recruiter that, I cleared all rounds and scheduled for on-site interview. Again, 3 interviews back to back.
Interview #5: Googlyness
Interview #6: Presentation, live demo
Interview #7: General presentation
Got a call from the recruiter that, I have cleared all rounds and scheduled interviews with 2 hiring managers.
Hiring manager discussion #1: Just asked about my background. This was not like an interview. Just talk.
Hiring manager discussion #2: Just asked about my background.
Recruiter told me that both of them were interested. Proceeded with hiring committee round. Took about 3 weeks due to holidays, et., and finally got an email saying, I have cleared HC round and sent for SVP approval. After about a week, I received an email saying, I was accepted at offer review round (SVP) and proceeded with compensation.
Key to success: For all roles.
#1: Make friends with your recruiter. Very important to land on a job with Google.
#2: Of course, think out of box!
#3: I know everything wants to know the interview questions, but I have signed NDA so can’t disclose. However, I can tell you is, read completely whatever your recruiter sends you over the emails to prepare you! Those are GOOD enough to clear the interviews.
#4: Don’t rush or don’t be nervous. I know it’s an interview, but claim yourself and always be appreciative of the interviewers time.
#5: Smile goes long way!
Good luck folks!