Interview Process:

The process took about 6 weeks from initial recruiter contact to final offer. It was very structured, with clear expectations set up front. The stages were:

Recruiter Screen (30 min)

• Overview of the role, team fit, and my background.
• Clarified expectations for system design, architecture, and Android platform expertise.

Technical Phone Screen (1 hour)

• One live coding problem focused on algorithmic problem-solving (LeetCode medium-level).
• Followed by a short discussion on Android framework internals (e.g., how Looper/Handler works, memory management, lifecycle pitfalls).

Onsite (virtual in my case) — 5 rounds:

• Android System Design: Design a large-scale, offline-capable mobile app with sync and caching. Deep dive into architecture decisions, threading models, and performance optimization.
• General System Design: Not Android-specific — more about designing a distributed system with scalability and reliability in mind.
• Coding Round 1: Data structures and algorithms (graph traversal + optimization).
• Coding Round 2: A mix of algorithmic and Android-specific challenges (e.g., implement an efficient image loader with caching).
• Leadership & Cross-Functional Collaboration: Behavioral interview based on Google’s leadership principles, examples of leading projects across multiple teams, and resolving conflicts.

Design an architecture for a real-time chat feature that works offline and syncs when online.