Of all the companies I have worked at or interviewed at, GOOG has been an experience to remember. It is one of the companies I admire for its culture and acceptance of the differences in its employees.

I applied through a connection I had on LinkedIn, and the response to my application was almost immediate. I've heard experiences of people who applied through the website and waited, but didn't receive a response. So, for someone willing to get GOOG to answer immediately, this might be an option. However, I still feel GOOG should reach out to people applying through the online interface as well.

My preparation was rigorous, covering all aspects of Data Structures and Algorithms, Design, Time and Space Complexity, and C/C++ Review.

I went through an initial round of HR screening, after which I was asked to choose between coming on campus for the coding interview. I opted to give the initial knockout round on campus. The screening delved into great depths of coding, design, and data structures/algorithms (by a Senior Software Engineer at GOOG). The 45-minute interview went on for more than 90 minutes. I believe I did well on this, and I could tell from the interviewer's responses. It was a little surprising that the interviewer said he hadn't read my resume, but I am a person who looks for the candidate's ability to pick up from where they are stumped. Therefore, I propelled forward without being fazed by the questions that followed.

The result was within 48 hours; I received a call from GOOG to schedule an onsite. This time it was longer, comprising four more rounds, about 12 days later.

I cannot discuss the questions as they were part of the NDA I signed. However, I can say there was a huge emphasis on design in my interview.

The interviewers (all of them) started with an open-ended question. To understand the scope of the problem, I asked many clarifying questions. I then came up with possible assumptions under which I operated, produced pseudocode, and wrote code.

I was interviewed by a mid-level Software Engineer to begin with, then another mid-level Software Engineer, then by a Manager, and finally by a Team Lead with six years of experience at GOOG. I was particularly interested in this last interview as he seemed to have experience working at a company that dealt with code security.

A stark difference between this interview and my previous ones at GOOG was that I was being asked to clarify the design on purpose and was prevented from writing code, or given very little time to do so. This felt very strange. Either the interviewers were new to the process or were doing it intentionally; I couldn't tell.

I got the impression they liked me during the interview. The conversation they engaged me in, along with the instant feedback and comfort they provided initially, suggested this. However, there was a point when they were just giving requirements, tracing them back, and the problem space was very complex and ambiguous. Several moments during the interview were quite challenging, and significant pressure was applied – all seemingly part of the GOOG interview process. I waded through the requirements, tried simplifying the constraints, and provided justifications as appropriate. I wrote code in almost all the interviews, except those that solely involved in-depth design.

All my final interviews were more than an hour and 15 minutes. The lunch interview was short and served as a casual overview of GOOG with the person who passed my resume. She wasn't from my background. I was again stumped as to why they asked me to have lunch on campus with her. I guessed they probably wanted to see how I interacted with a variety of people with different job descriptions on campus. This was a very surprising part of the interview.

I could tell that the interviewers were very keen on trying to sell GOOG to me, discussing the workplace, their shipping cycles, their code review strategy, how they get new projects, and how they share space with the Mountain View office and collaborate.

Finally, I was escorted by a Team Lead, and we seemed to continue the discussion as a continuation of the questions asked in the interview process. They were very engaging design discussions, and I got the sense that this was a company I could look up to.