The total process took almost two months. It began with one telephonic interview, followed by an onsite interview which consisted of five individual interviews. During this period, the recruiters changed five times. Each time, I was given different information regarding the reference check. The last recruiter informed me that no reference check was needed until an offer was extended. I prepared for over a month, focusing on mathematics, algorithms, and data structures. I also solved problems from LeetCode and Glassdoor, and read papers on GFS, MapReduce, and other topics.

The interview questions were difficult, as expected from Google, but I solved all of them reasonably quickly from my perspective. Ten days after the interview, the recruiter informed me that my data structure and algorithm skills were strong. However, there were some issues with the coding portion of the interview, which led to my rejection by the hiring committee. I was advised to reapply in 12 months.

This feedback is largely unhelpful, as I code daily at work, with my code being reviewed by peers. I also practiced extensively for this interview. Therefore, I am unsure what went wrong with the coding part.

I do not know if this significant time investment was worth it. I will likely not reapply to Google.

Signed NDA, but the interview focused on Graph/DP/String manipulation/Bit manipulation/Encoding-decoding, and some design problems.