I applied online and they sent me a coding assignment which was 90 minutes long and consisted of two problems. One of them was pretty easy and the other one was remarkably hard. Even though I failed miserably on the second question, the recruiter got back to me and told me they like to move forward for a technical phone interview. She also sent me a guide which was very helpful in preparation for the interview.
The technical phone interview was 45 minutes long with a SWE and they had me code on Google Doc. The question was pretty easy except it was tricky which I didn't see and that was when I knew I failed the test. After coding the solution, the engineer asked me a lot of follow up questions concerning scalability.
I got my feedback exactly a week after which was I failed. This is the part which made me really, really mad. Generally if I fail a phone interview, recruiter usually gets back to me via an email and that is the norm. Anyways, the recruiter actually called me and I assumed that meant I was going to forward to the next round. Nope. She called me to tell me that I failed the interview. While I do understand that Google is trying to be all that and do things their own way, I really thought this was unnecessary. If she called me if I failed the onsite, that would have been fine. I understand that they are trying to me more personal. I am aware she was only doing what her job requires her to do but I just think that was unnecessary. Got my hopes up for no reason. I wonder how others feel about this.
