Google Software Engineer interview questions

Recruiter started off professional. Originally contacted by someone in Mtn View and then transferred to someone in Santa Monica. Phone interview was intense, but I did my best. I felt like I got most of the questions wrong. My interviewer walked me through any incorrect answers and overall it was a pleasant experience. The interviewer was very good. Most of my questions were about searching and sorting, about half of them were the stupid questions from their database. He asked a good 10-15 questions during our phone call but most were short. Unlike most people, for some reason I was not asked any coding questions. The on-site interview was a disaster. 1. It started with a discussion of my thesis topic which was fine. Expect them to understand your topic no matter how esoteric or specific it is. 2. A second interviewer asked about my thesis. He did not like my topic at all claiming that it doesn't scale well. Well, excuse me for not having access to Google's data! Then proceeded to ask some dumb questions (specific to Java) from their database. Finally, I started coding on the board. If I did something wrong, he was very misleading in the "hints" that he was trying to give; he could not articulate what the problem was with my code. 3. I had lunch with my phone interviewer. It went fine, but Google food is not all it is cracked up to be. The others that I met during lunch seemed stressed out, but friendly. 4. No comments on next interviewer as he was pretty good. 5. HORRIBLE interviewer. Very arrogant, very condescending, very intimidating. He asked a very esoteric question that was very confusing and required me to read a manual before attempting to answer the question. He was very rude and mean to me and made it clear that he did not want to be there. I really just wanted to walk out of the room. 6. At this point I was shot. This interviewer asked me a question and while I was coding, I did something wrong. She said the problem was giving her a "headache" so we would move on to something else, just like that. The next question was better and was more pleasant. My recruiter told me to use whatever language I was most comfortable with. I specifically asked if I could use Python and she said "yes". I know Java, C and C++ but they are not my everyday languages. To my dismay, most of the questions were phrased "Used Java" or "Use C, C++ or Java" or "use C or C++". One of my interviewers did not even know Python. My first recruiter KNEW point blank that Python was my everyday language and said that was perfect for this interview. Apparently, I should have never even been recruited since I do not program in Java/C/C++ as an everyday thing. I was also told that the interview is about how you "think" which is not at all true. You need to know very specific things about algorithms, design patterns, and object-oriented programming, so read books before the interview. I was told that I would hear within a week. I never did. I had to call the recruiter and she pretended that she was going to tell me my result that day anyway. The recruiting process is wrought with bad information and too much power is given to the recruiters. Until they get this right, they will continue to hire the mediocre people that I have read so much about.

I was contacted by a Google recruiter by phone. My resume was on file from a previous interview 3 years ago which did not result in an offer. We had a short conversation about what was available at Google and about what my experience was. The questions and information were very high level and it didn't seem like this was even a phone screen of any sort. She then passed me on to the HR person at the NY office. I was told that there would be a phone interview where I would need to be at a computer and would need to be able to code, but since I has already been onsite previously they decided to skip this. I was handed on to yet another person to actually schedule the interview and then back to the HR person. The onsite interview was from 10 to 3 and consisted of 5 interviews and a lunch conversation. Each interview was 45 minutes and they ran pretty much right on schedule. They were difficult, but pretty much what was expected. There almost no discussion of work history or anything other than technical questions. Most of the time was spent at the whiteboard working on and then refining the answer to a question. They mainly focused on data structures and algorithms around them. Things like BST, hash tables, tree traversals. The questions were not standard algorithm questions that you tend to see around, but a bit more involved. They were interested in your speaking about the algorithmic complexity of your solution and how to choose appropriate data structures. Hash vs. BST came up a bit. The coding that had to be done was a bit awkward for a whiteboard. The solutions were not necessarily short. One interview revolved around a higher level system design question that was refined throughout the discussion. There was very little to no time to ask questions or discuss working at google and the inteviewers did not seem interested in selling me on google. The lunch conversation was not an interview and did not contribute towards the assessment. The person I ate with was very nice and seemed honest about the way things are at google. Over 2 weeks after the interview I was contacted with the rejection. Overall the process was smooth and people were helpful and nice. Though I did not find anyone to be particularly interested in selling the company. The interviewers were hard but fair for the most part. One interviewer did not describe the problem particularly well and had me coding a solution to the wrong problem for a while.