Google Winter Internship Interview Experience

I’m Posi Ganga Pavani pursuing B. Tech in Shri Vishnu Engineering College for Women in Electronics and Communication Engineering(Don’t get shocked…Yeah I belong to circuit branch).I’m part of Women Engineers Program by Google which paved a way for Google Opportunity.

Process :

1. Resume Shortlist
2. Technical Interview 1
3. Technical Interview 2

I submitted my application through Women Engineers Program. And I hope at the end of October 2023 , I received the call from the recruiter that my resume got shortlisted for Winter Internship Role and she explained me the further steps to be done for scheduling interview and took my availability before scheduling interview.

I even had a session on “How to prepare for interview by Googlers..” Then the next day was my first technical interview.

I was given two medium — hard level(Leet code difficulty) problems. I was able to solve both the questions easily and gave the optimal approaches for the problems at one go and coded them. I was left with time , so recruiter asked me if I can think to further optimize my solutions . He was satisfied with my codes but asked me to give a try. I couldn’t think of further optimization and informed the same. My interview ended , with me enquiring about his experience working with Google. (It lasted for 45 minutes.)

After two days , I received call from recruiter that I cleared the first round of interview and asked for availability. I asked for some more time to prepare for second round but she convinced me that I was in correct path and provided good feedback for first interview and asked to work on solution optimization. And took my availability for second round.

I had my interview the next day and I was quite nervous. The interviewer asked me to introduce and he introduced himself. Then he gave a problem with 2 follow-ups for same question which can be solved by backtracking (Brute force) which I figured out and coded it up for the first question . He asked me to optimize the code . I was completely blank and couldn’t think of optimization . He gave me time to think but I was unable to figure out. By then ,it was 1 hour 30 minutes . He didn’t even asked me to think of follow up questions. At the end , I asked the optimal approach to the interviewer ,and he explained very clearly. And I asked for the advice to a fresher who was a tech aspirant, I heard very different answer, Rather joining Google, join in some startup and gain experience ,you won’t be building new skills working here he suggested, I was shocked by his words and told ‘OKK’.

After a week , I got rejection mail. It was quite disappointing ,as I went to the end and bounced back. Though the learning experience was awesome.

Suggestions:

1. Don’t run directly to optimal approach even you know it. Give it step by step from brute-force
2. Try to solve questions as fast as you can .Don’t get into a path that there would be single problem to solve. The interviewer might have follow- ups for the same problem.

Practice and don’t loose the target though you couldn’t make in the first attempt(Suggestion from my WE alumni).

Happy Coding !!!

See you Google !!!