A recruiter reached out to me via email. The phone screen involved implementing an algorithm to sort a list into the form s1 < s2 > s3.... I provided an n log n solution, which was not optimal, but I passed this round and was invited for an onsite interview.

I don't quite remember all of the questions. One involved walking diagonally on a chessboard. This certainly requires more intelligence than simply going over the "Cracking the Coding Interview" book. I had only gone through a few chapters of CTCI at that point.

One thing that disappointed me was that the recruiter did not provide interview feedback. I know most other Google candidates receive it, but I pinged my HR twice. After she left a voicemail stating I was rejected, I did not receive a response.

Regardless, this was my first-ever onsite interview, and it was with Google. I was thrilled to have passed the phone screen and reached the onsite stage. Also, the lunch was good. Therefore, I am giving it a positive review.

Given a starting position on a chessboard and an end position, if you are only allowed to move diagonally, how many steps do you need to take to get to the end position?