I applied through university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Sept 2011
Interview
I met the company's representative on campus and applied through their website and I received an email soon after asking me to select my preferences for the on-campus interview. The interview was tough, but if someone is thorough with the topics and has practiced quite a few problems then it should be manageable.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a a new dictionary of words in English alphabets but the ordering of the alphabets are not necessarily as the English alphabets, that is, say c comes a in the new alphabet series. Hence, the dictionary would also contain words in a different ordering than the usual dictionary. If you are given enough words in this new dictionary so that you can find enough relationships between the new series, find the new series.
The interview was way more challenging than I anticipated, especially the technical rounds. I was thrown off by the depth of the DSA questions. One standout was a coding question about finding the median of two sorted arrays, which I recognized instantly — it was the same problem I had worked through on PracHub. The behavioral questions felt less intense, but the overall vibe was stressful. Ultimately, I didn’t receive an offer. It was a tough experience, but I'm grateful for what I learned along the way.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given two sorted arrays of size m and n, find the median of the combined sorted array in O(log(min(m,n))) time.
The interviewer was very nice, one interviewer didn't show up so I rescheduled it. When I didn't come up with the best solution, the interveiwer was very patient and give me hint as many as possible
1 screening round + 3 onsite round
All rounds were focused on DSA that included topics like strings, linked list, heap and dynamic programming. Screening round had 2 questions on qualifying which I was eligible for onsite and Googliness rounds. The whole process took nearlying 2.5 months