Google sure knows how to treat its interview candidates well. I went for an on-site interview in their beautiful new Kirkland office. They offered me fresh-brewed coffee in the morning and, of course, invited me to partake in a gourmet lunch.

Interviewers are well-prepared, and all interviews seem to follow a similar format. I had four interviews, each lasting one hour.

Each round starts with a few short-answer questions before diving into coding. I studied a number of interview question sites beforehand but was still quite surprised when I actually got one of the questions from there. So, it partially paid off.

Best advice is as others say: know your data structures and algorithms. I didn't get any high-level design questions.

As soon as you get the problem statement, think out loud! No matter how stupid it sounds, silence is even worse. It's fine to come up with a really inefficient solution to start. The interviewer will usually drop hints if there is a better way. Finally, know how to figure out your Big O().

Pick any Google product and tell me how you would improve it.