I applied via an internal referral by a Google employee. Google was very patient in scheduling the first technical phone screen according to my needs. The phone screen involved a simple coding question (LeetCode easy level). I was able to move on to the next (and, in my case, final) round of onsite interviews.

I was asked coding questions in 4 of the 5 interviews. The other interview focused on my experiences with test strategy development, and I was asked to design a mock test strategy for a real product/service.

In terms of difficulty, I would say 1 of the 4 coding questions was medium-hard, 1 was medium, and 2 were easy. I say this based on having reviewed/solved several dozen LeetCode problems of all levels.

I enjoyed the conversations with all the interviewers. All of them were very friendly and polite. I also found them to be helpful and patient. Interviews can get stressful, so my advice would be to take measured breaks. Even if you do not need a bathroom break, take one to regroup and reset your mind. Sometimes you make mistakes, or some processing is still happening from previous interview questions as you have just begun tackling a new one. Make sure you start afresh with a clean slate. It sounds like common sense, but you really need to make a routine of it, as it helps in the transitions between questions.

Oh, also, if you are available to do a coaching session that Google offers candidates before your final interviews, do one – I found it helpful.

Good luck!

At a high level (without giving away too much):

• Two questions involved operations on arrays, such as finding the maximum or minimum of something. One of these was clearly an optimization problem and was hard (at least for me).

• One involved applying a simple transformation to a 2D array. This one, I felt, was a LeetCode easy level.

• One involved modifying the structure of a binary tree. This one, I would say, was a LeetCode medium level.