Software Engineer Interview Experience - Mountain View, California
Process
The entire process probably took about 2-3 months.
I had a casual phone call with one of their recruiters, then moved on to a technical phone interview.
Next, I had a phone + programming interview using a Google Doc, then proceeded to the onsite interview.
I had 5 onsite interviews in one day:
- The first 3 involved coding on a whiteboard.
- After lunch, I had 2 more, which were mostly high-level topics like graphs, distributed computing, and client-server query bandwidth optimization.
Questions
One question involved creating a collection of the longest common phrases between two strings.
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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
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
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Google's Software Engineer interview process in Mountain View, California.
Google Work Experiences
- 5.0Still a good place to workSoftware Engineer • Former EmployeeMountain View, California, United StatesMay 26, 2025Pros: Good work-life balance, no pressure.Cons: A little laid-back, old school.
- 5.0Great Perks, Trivial TasksSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeMountain View, California, United StatesJuly 14, 2014Pros: Benefits, perks, interesting projects, learning, and growth opportunities. Google offers a lot of career development, and even a lot of entertainment onsite.Cons: Overheads of checking in code, politics in certain groups. Sometimes people are spending a lot of time working just on trivial stuff.
- 5.0Solid all aroundSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeMountain View, California, United StatesJuly 24, 2021Pros: Great work-life balance. Lots of smart people. Many projects to learn.Cons: Promotion can be slow. The company is very large, and it can feel less personal than a small company.
Google Interview Questions
