I was contacted within a week of applying online, and a phone interview was set up for the following week. The phone interview lasted about 45 minutes.

The interviewer was fairly unenthusiastic, which is known to be common during Google first rounds since they expect most people to fail. I'm almost certain they were up and grabbing a coffee during my interview. The interviewer seemed eager to get it over with and jumped right into coding on a Google Doc.

I was asked to code a simple data structure and do some simple arithmetic involving for loops, so I knew I had the correct answer. After the coding, I was asked if I had any questions for about 30 minutes.

After the interview concluded, I waited two weeks and had to prompt the recruiter for feedback. I was told my interview had not yet been reviewed and that they would try to get that information as soon as possible. There was back and forth for another two weeks until I was finally called by the recruiter. They informed me that they would be moving forward with other candidates. He told me the feedback stated that I answered the questions correctly and my code was well-written. He then advised me to gain more industry experience and apply again in 8-10 months.

The main takeaway for me was that while Google may present itself as open to anyone who is smart, it's crucial to have quantifiable experience and a very solid resume to back it up. Perhaps even mention something other than "GOOGLE" in the cover letter box.

Design a system to store ratings from 1-5 on applications. Find the median, mean, and mode of ratings.