First, there is a phone interview. Then, you go to the company campus and sit in a room where stressed people turn up late to ask you a series of technical questions of increasing difficulty.

Some of the interviewers seemed interested in thinking about their problems, but most were acting more like it was their duty to come to these meetings. One interviewer was outright rude when I pointed out that he was, in fact, wrong in his solution to a problem he posed. Generally, the process felt mechanized, impersonal, and ineffective.

Having worked in similar firms and been involved in the hiring process there, it felt that Google was more interested in being different than actually finding good candidates. The food on offer was also nothing special compared with other Bay Area high-tech companies.

Propose a data structure for a distributed range query.

What would you like to do with 10,000 computers?