I was a recent US citizen and Masters graduate in ECE from a top 10 engineering school. After passing my in-person interviews and being told that the "hard part was over," I was declined for hiring.

Timeline:

• Day 0: Submitted resume online for 5 Software Engineering positions at Mountain View.
• Day 6: Received email invitation from Seattle/Kirkland college recruiter for phone interviews.
• Day 11: Non-technical phone interview with college recruiter. Scheduled two back-to-back technical interviews.
• Day 19: One technical phone interview. Second phone interview rescheduled.
• Day 21: Second technical phone interview.
• Day 31: Invited for on-site interview. I did not provide an optional professor's letter of recommendation.
• Day 42: Scheduled for on-site interview at Kirkland site.
• Day 53-55: Flown on-site for interview, 1st class outbound, coach returning, hotel in Seattle. Arrived at Kirkland site, was told that the Kirkland address was a mistake on their part, and the interview would actually be in downtown Seattle. Drove rental car back to Seattle for interview (resulting in only a half-hour delay). Had 5 technical 1-on-1 interviews and an informal lunch interview. Performed well.
• Day 62: Notified of approval by local hiring committee.
• Day 70: Notified that final determination of candidacy could take another week.
• Day 75: Declined for hiring. Was encouraged to re-apply in 9-12 months after more work experience.

Most questions were the typical, contrived algorithm problems, but a couple were more open-ended design questions.

There was one problem that involved graphs.

After giving a solution, they'll ask what the asymptotic complexity is and how that can be improved. I was also asked what test cases I would write against the solution.