My Google India SDE Interview Experience — 2021 [ Offer ]
It was 2014. I just started my B. Tech at NIT Durgapur in Computer Science. News of one of our seniors getting an overseas offer in a tech giant came out and after hearing more about the company, their culture, their offices, etc, I was like “Wow! Is this for real?”. That tech giant was none other than “Google”.
Fast forward to 2021, I got an opportunity to appear for the Software Engineer position at Google India.
How I got the interview opportunity ?
In the early 2021, one of the Google recruiters approached me via LinkedIn as he found my profile interesting and appropriate for a Software Engineer position. So, I was kind of lucky here.
What were the expectations?
Once I showed my interest, the recruiter scheduled an introductory phone call to brief me about the interview process and these expectations:
- Coding: You should be able to write good quality code i.e. syntactically correct, fully functional, modular, and clean with proper naming conventions.
- DS & Algo: You should be able to come up with an optimised solution using algorithms and different data structures as needed. Also, you should be well aware of the time complexity of your solution.
- Communication: You should be thinking out loud at every stage. In other words, consider it to be a healthy discussion with one of your teammates ( the interviewer here ) on some specific problem, and you’re supposed to lead the discussion.
- Speed of coding: It’s one of the most important aspects because generally candidates become nervous and that impacts not only their thought process but also their coding speed. Time is limited in the interview, so practicing beforehand is always suggested.
Phone Screen ( 45 minutes )
I was very nervous before the phone screen. I even thought of rescheduling 15 minutes before the interview 😅. Anyway, the interviewer was very polite and we had a small chat on how exciting it is to work at Google. Then he asked me one easy question, to which I gave a hashing based solution and coded it. Then he asked a follow-up question which was a bit difficult as compared to the first one.
The very next day, my recruiter called me with the feedback. I was amazed by the amount of details. The interviewer gave good feedback on thought process, communication, coding speed, coding language depth and asked to work on the algorithmic skill a bit. So, I passed through the phone screen round.
Onsite Coding Interviews
There were 3 onsite coding interviews ( schedule virtually on different dates ). I can’t disclose the exact questions because of NDA.
First Round ( 45 minutes ):
In the first interview, I was asked a medium question related to regular expression matching and a follow-up question. Once I coded both the solutions, the interviewer asked me to give an approach to solve the problem at scale.
Second Round ( 45 minutes ):
In the second round one string based medium question was asked. Once I coded the solution, the interviewer changed one key part of the problem and asked me to modify my solution accordingly. The basic idea behind this was perhaps to see the flexibility of my code.
Third Round ( 45 minutes ):
In the third round, one hard graph question was asked. Initially I couldn’t figure out a good solution, but then I broke the problem into parts and tried to find the best thing I can do to solve each part. Throughout the process, I was thinking out loud and the interviewer also shared his thoughts and guided me. Ultimately we reached to a solution using graph traversal and dynamic programming.
As my feedback for all the rounds were positive, the recruiter asked for my convenient time slot for the behavioural round aka the “Googleyness” round.
What happens in Googleyness Round?
So, my recruiter gave me a very simple yet powerful advice for this round and that was “Be Honest”. And trust me it helped me a lot. The Googleyness round was more about imagining yourself as a Googler and then how you would react to different situations given by the interviewer. The questions were a bit tricky but this was the most fun round I had in the entire process.
Team Match (30 minutes)
Once I got positive feedback on the Googleyness round, my recruiter asked for my preference for team match. Being a travel freak, I have always been fascinated about how Google Maps has changed the way we navigate. Thus, Google Maps was undoubtedly my first choice followed by Google Search and Google Ads. I had two team match meetings with the respective managers. In these meetings they asked about what kind of work I’ve done or I want to do in future and also told me about their work. I liked both the teams, so got a match quickly.
Hiring Committee
Once I got a team match, my recruiter asked me for few documents and internal employee references ( if any ) to create a packet consisting all my interview feedbacks as well. On what parameters the hiring committee gives a green signal or a red signal, that is still a mystery to me 😂.
Offer & Celebration
After waiting for nearly 2.5 weeks, the hiring committee finally approved my packet. After the compensation discussion, I got the offer letter within 2 days. I couldn’t believed that I got an offer from Google. My family members and all my friends were very happy and proud. I pray to god that everyone gets to witness such joy in their life.
Conclusion
This was a detailed overview of the interview process I went through. I hope you find it informative. In case you have any specific question, I’ll be more than happy to help ( My LinkedIn Profile ).
Best wishes 😊
