I had a phone conversation with a recruiter from the New York office. A few days later, she sent me a detailed, multi-page email on how the in-person interview would be conducted.

I was told I would meet three engineers in the Austin office.

When I arrived at the office, I was met by an engineering manager. An hour was spent discussing an algorithmic problem. I tried to ask questions about the culture of the Austin office, how requirements are gathered, how testing is done, and what the technical environment is, but was pointed back to the code on the whiteboard.

After an hour of conversation with this engineering manager, another engineering manager showed up. The first hour was repeated with a different algorithm/code problem. And then yet another engineering manager.

My questions were not answered, and these individuals were not interested in anything other than my ability to reason about large sets of bits.

A recruiter followed up about a week later, and Google sent me a check for my interview expenses.

I suppose it was a good interview experience; I quickly learned that I definitely did not want to work there.

Something about poker, or baseball season, or some other game that I was not familiar enough with to reason about.