A Google recruiter contacted me (I never applied for any positions at Google). Within a week, I had my phone interview, which went very well.

They decided to skip the second phone interview (at least, that's what I was told) and invited me to the New York office for an in-person interview. The in-person interview lasted the whole day, with me talking to six people and having lunch with the team.

I found the office to be super cool, with a fun atmosphere, and the people were very nice. The questions asked were fairly reasonable.

What threw me off was the recruiter stressing several times that Google's approach to interviews is very academic. I considered myself more technical than academic (I thought) and spent the next week reviewing algorithms and data structures.

I was told at the end that I have very strong professional qualifications, but my knowledge is more academic, and they were looking for somebody with more hands-on experience (after me throwing theory at them left and right). In the end, I think I overdid it.

I believe you need to find a good balance if you want to get hired.

Most phones now have full keyboards. Before, there were three letters mapped to a number button. Describe how you would go about implementing spelling and word suggestions as people type.

Implement on a board a shortest path algorithm when traveling from point A to point B. Once you produce a solution, consider modifications to the initial problem, such as what if points x, y, and z cannot be used in a path.