The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in June 2009
Interview
A recruiter has been in contact with me for half a year, until I'm finally ready to apply. Then, they gave me a phone interview, 2-3 weeks later, followed by another phone interview. I'm going for an onsite interview in a few days.
Phone interview 1:
1. What is virtual function?
2. What is the benefit of inherent?
3. What is the advantage of interface in java?
4. Write a program to reverse a linked list.
5. Write a program to find the intersection of two sets and test your program.
Phone interview 2:
1. How to get k random samples in a large file of query key words?
hints: partition the files into n trunks. Load the trunk into main memory.
2. How to design a search engine? If each document contains a set of keywords, and is associated with a numeric attribute, how to build indices?
hints: use inverted list + B+tree.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How to design a search engine? If each document contains a set of keywords, and is associated with a numeric attribute, how to build indices?
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
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