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Software Engineer Interview Experience - Mountain View, California

June 1, 2018
Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

Contacted by a recruiter during the first week of May. We had an initial 30-minute call discussing my background and interests. After that, I was moved to a 45-minute phone interview with an engineer. He started with some questions about my preferred coding language (Python) and basic data structure and algorithm concepts. We then moved to a coding exercise (on Google Doc). There was a follow-up question on my provided solution. The following business day, I was contacted by my recruiter to come onsite for the rest of the process. Onsite consisted of 5 (45-minute) technical interview rounds and a lunch interview (apparently, they don't give feedback for this round; it's a chance for you to learn about their culture). Questions mostly started simple, but their follow-ups were tougher. You are expected to write the code (not pseudocode) on the whiteboard (also, they take pictures of your code for writing the feedback). You're also supposed to have the best time and space complexity. Interviewers were helpful with their hints (keep your ears wide open for their suggestions and incorporate them). You're also expected to be very verbose about your thinking process (practice speaking out your solution loud). If you can come up with multiple solutions to the problem, it's appreciated.

After Onsite Process:

  1. Team Matching: I was contacted the next business day saying that they received all my feedback, and it was a strong indicator to move me forward to the team-matching phase (this happens before your packet goes for the Hiring Committee, as per the new process). Your packet is sent to all hiring managers, and then they schedule calls to talk to all the interested hiring managers. It's more like an informal interview. After you get matched with a team, they forward your application to the Hiring Committee.
  2. Once the application was approved by the Hiring Committee, it was passed to the offer committee.
  3. After the offer committee approves, you get the formal offer letter.

Questions

NDA.

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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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