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Software Engineer Interview Experience - Mountain View, California

December 20, 2018
Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

Rude Interviewer

I really want to complain about the interviewer in the last round, which made me feel very bad and depressed. Here is what happened during my last round:

  1. The interviewer arrived about 3 minutes late. We had a brief greeting, and he started the interview questions.

  2. The interviewer, with a strong accent, sat down and began speaking the questions at a fast speed for 2 minutes.

  3. I tried to clarify his question on the whiteboard, but he seemed unwilling to say anything more and didn't want to help me understand his question. After I asked about 2-3 times, he started giving some brief statements on the whiteboard, and finally, I got a rough understanding of what he was asking. However, when I wanted further confirmation about the expected input for this interview question, he was unwilling to give any guidance. (I think during an interview, it's the interviewer's duty to help the interviewee understand their expectations by giving statements on the whiteboard or providing samples, but this interviewer refused to give me any hints and even acted as if he didn't want to talk to me...)

  4. A few minutes later, I figured out an expectation for his question, and he agreed with it. Then I started coding. He began typing my code on his computer for his reference. He sat to one side of the whiteboard and kept complaining that he couldn't figure out what I was writing, and he asked me to rewrite some code that he couldn't recognize. (I had completed 4 rounds of interviews at Google today, and none of the other interviewers had the same requirement or judgment on my whiteboard writing. This is because 45 minutes is not enough time to finish thinking, discussing, coding, and many follow-up questions.)

  5. When I rewrote a part of the code and asked him if he could see the handwriting clearly, he started staring at me with what I felt was hostility.

  6. Finally, I finished the coding and answered some follow-up questions based on the interview question, and I suggested Union-find as a performance improvement approach. He said he still had questions for me, but we had run out of time. However, there were still 5 minutes left. He just kept typing code on his laptop and didn't talk to me, which was an awkward moment. Other interviewers just took a photo of the whiteboard, but I felt his interview was focused on finishing all his work within the 45 minutes and giving me a rejection.

  7. After he finished, since this was the last round, I hoped for a brief chat, and I wanted to learn about his team. However, he didn't give me any opportunity and just led me out of the building.

  8. In the end, I said thanks for the interview and offered to shake his hand, even though it hadn't been a friendly interview experience. He just said, 'Good luck,' and turned his back to me and walked away, which made me feel he was very rude.

  9. Overall, the interviewer gave me the impression that he was in a bad mood today and was trying to reject me and destroy my confidence.

Questions

Topological sort, DFS on graph, Union-find in 45 minutes for my last round.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 748 interview experiences for the Google Software Engineer role in Mountain View, California.

Success Rate

20%
Pass Rate

Google's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Mountain View, California is very selective, failing most engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive64%
Neutral23%
Negative14%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Google's Software Engineer interview process in Mountain View, California.

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