I was not looking to switch jobs, but I was contacted out of the blue by a recruiter on LinkedIn. I was happy with my job, which I held with the same company since college graduation (10 years).

However, I decided to give Google a shot. If anything, it would probably teach me something about myself.

The recruiter set up a phone interview for roughly one month later. I apparently did well, as the recruiter contacted me about two hours after the interview to say I passed. I was then forwarded to a recruiter in Mountain View, who set up an on-site interview for about 1.5 months later. I'm sure the timeframes here could have been quicker, but for each step, I wanted time to study.

During the on-site interview, I met with five different engineers (four where feedback was taken and one lunch interview). Each interview lasted between 45 minutes and 1 hour. I interviewed with members from two specific teams, the potential ones I would be joining if offered a position. Despite the fact the lunch interview was not supposed to count, I was told that the lunch interviewer was instrumental in getting me hired.

It took quite a long time after the on-site interview until I received an offer. It took two weeks to collect interview feedback and one week to get the go-ahead to put me through the hiring committee. It took two weeks to go through the hiring committee and an additional week to go through the executive committee. At that point, I had an offer, but it took another day or two to negotiate the details.

I initially wanted to decline the offer since I was leery of moving my family, but the recruiter gave me the weekend to think about it.

I verbally accepted after the weekend. It took another two days to choose a relocation package and one more day to receive a formal offer letter, which I electronically signed.

I hope I made the right choice! I am worried that I took a step or two down in responsibility, but the compensation was a little bit better than what I was making, even cost-of-living adjusted. If anything, I'll have an interesting experience to talk about and Google on my resume.

However, I received two different dynamic programming problems, which I didn't expect and found to be quite difficult.

Three of the interviewers had me do whiteboard work, but only one of them actually had me do any coding, which was a basic singly linked list type problem.