I applied directly to a job listed on the company website. It was a week or two before I received a response inviting me to a phone screen. This was rescheduled with a different interviewer at the last minute.

The phone screen took about 40 minutes; it included general technical discussion followed by an algorithms question. After that, there was another wait with no feedback before I was invited for a face-to-face interview.

For the on-site interview, I had five one-to-one interviews (45 minutes each, plus breaks). These mostly focused on coding questions on the whiteboard; I was encouraged to use any language I liked. One interviewer asked me about working within a team, and another walked me through designing a large-scale system (how to manage storage for attachments in webmail). I didn't feel like those two were especially challenging; it was more about getting on with the interviewers and showing a good attitude.

I had a chat with Google's recruiter before and after the interviews, and had lunch and a tour of the office. It was a really pleasant experience overall.

After that, there was another long wait for results. I asked the recruiter if he had any information and was told, "The interview feedback was positive on the whole, so tonight your details will be discussed at a hiring committee meeting in California. I will be able to tell you more tomorrow." Instead, I was told the next day that my review had been delayed until the next session!

The recruiter asked me for as much extra information as possible, particularly focusing on any qualifications or rankings I had, such as a chess ranking—anything with a score attached. I had to dig out all my exam scores from individual courses at university; this isn't something an interviewer would normally ask for in the UK.

About a week later, I finally received a job offer.

Given a large list of numbers, find two numbers that sum to a given target.