I was cold-called one day by a Google recruiter. I initially indicated that Google wouldn't be a good fit because I didn't want to live in California, but he mentioned other offices, including the one in Boulder. Colorado is pretty similar to my home state of Utah.

The first part of the interview was a one-hour phone interview. During the interview, I was asked to solve a series of technical problems, including describing algorithms and providing big-O complexities. The questions started out fairly simple but rapidly increased in difficulty and complexity.

The second part was a day-long in-person interview. Google flew me to Boulder for it. I had five one-hour interviews, each similar to the phone screen, except for the middle one, which wasn't really an interview; it was lunch, with a chance to discuss the company with a Googler. (As it turns out, my lunch "interviewer" is now my manager, so it was a great chance to get to know him).

After the interview, it took about two weeks to get an answer from Google, and another week to get an offer. That was strange to me; in my experience, decisions and offers usually come quicker. I've since learned how the process works, and because of its structure, my experience is typical. The offer was so good that even though my family wasn't excited about moving to Colorado, there really was no question. I've since learned that very, very few people turn down Google's offers.