An HR person contacted me a week after I submitted my application online, around mid-October. The phone interview was then scheduled for early December.

The phone interview was awful. A guy called. He did not say 'Hi' or 'How are you?'. He did not even introduce himself. He was very quiet and did not speak clear English. I had major difficulty hearing and understanding his accent. He did not tell me his name until I asked him 20 minutes into the interview. He was not very responsive to my questions for clarification or 'am I on track' type of questions.

He did not recognize some of the most basic C/C++ conventions (for example, a ? b : c). He told me that my code was hard to understand and that he was not sure if that code could work. He prepared two coding questions. Due to the communication delay, it took me 35 minutes to finish the first one. He seemed rather impatient and did not ask me the second coding question at all. He doubted, 'Did you prepare for this interview?'. Then he said, 'Oh, you are from physics, not computer science.' Clearly, he did not think I could do C/C++. Oh well, good for him.

His voice was low, down, unhappy, and robotic. I tried to sweeten the atmosphere twice, unsuccessfully. Honestly, I think it is the interviewer's job to make the interviewing atmosphere pleasant for both parties. If you tape-recorded our 43-minute conversation, you would feel that I was the interviewer and he was the interviewee.

I had very high expectations for a Google interviewer. He was utterly unprepared at best. I am just disappointed.

Later on, I learned from some friends that they had similar experiences with Google interviews. Some Google interviewers are really nasty to deal with, to say the least.

Google is a great place in general. But I am nowhere near desperate for an offer. I would not consider Google in any near future, and I will tell my friends to be prepared for some Google interviews like this.

Nothing particular. I am not allowed to share the interview question, anyway.