I applied for a mid-level software engineer role at Google and received a reply from a recruiter after about two weeks. The entire process took roughly five weeks.

The process included:

• A recruiter screen, which was standard and unsurprising.
• A technical phone screen over Google Meet with a shared document. The question was graph-based. I reached a working solution but felt rushed and received almost no feedback.
• A virtual onsite with four back-to-back interviews:
  • Two technical rounds (dynamic programming and binary trees).
  • A system design round (designing a rate limiter).
  • One behavioral round.

I performed well in one coding round, struggled a bit in the other, and felt my system design answers were adequate but not exceptional. The behavioral round felt vague, with many "tell me a time when" questions, and I was unsure of the specific expectations.

About a week later, I received a templated rejection email with no detailed feedback, which was frustrating given the time I invested in preparation. When I asked the recruiter for insights, I received the standard "you can reapply in six months" response.

Overall, the process felt fair but impersonal.