I was first contacted by one of Google's internal reviewers. As I'm always open to opportunities, I pointed him to my website and resume. He quickly responded to schedule a phone interview with one of the engineers. The phone interview covered a little background and then two programming (very basic) problems via a shared Google Doc. After the interview, the recruiter emailed me back to schedule an in-person interview. This is one of their famous all-day interviews of five back-to-back one-on-one whiteboard interviews. The problems covered several basic algorithms, toy problems, internet/browser architecture, and algorithm performance evaluation. A couple of the interviewers allowed the discussion to deviate from the assigned questions (yes, assigned) to explore issues. All the interviewers were very friendly, and I thought the interview went well. The scope of the questions was easier than I had heard from the suggested reading material and various online horror stories. Nonetheless, they did not offer me a position, nor did they explain the reasons or suggest areas of improvement. Regardless, they suggested I apply again next year. :-/

Describe what happens when a user clicks a link in a browser.