A recruiter contacted me on LinkedIn. We then met on a group call with other candidates to discuss the interview process.

Next, we submitted a coding sample focused on data structures and algorithms (LeetCode practice was helpful for this).

After passing the coding sample, the recruiter arranged a series of five interviews. I had the option to attend a "welcome week" Zoom call and a Google Engineer Q&A. (I heard some candidates had an additional technical screening at this point, though I did not. This may have been because I applied through a recruiter.)

The five interviews consisted of four technical and one behavioral interview.

I found solutions for three out of the four technical interviews, with two being optimal (I had encountered similar questions before).

All interviewers were extremely helpful and friendly, except for one who seemed unfamiliar with the coding question he presented. He didn't understand when I asked if I could use a well-known algorithm for my approach, or perhaps he was simply not very communicative.

About two weeks after completing my interviews, my recruiter called to inform me that I had not received an offer. However, I did receive an offer from another company the following month, so a "no" is not the end of the world!

While the details cannot be disclosed, be sure to invest time in completing easy and medium LeetCode questions. It's not worth it to focus on the hard ones.

For sure, review concepts related to hashmaps, hashsets, arrays, string manipulation, graphs, and trees.

Previous Google interview questions are published online and can be very helpful.