Google Software Engineer Interview Handbook

Interview Process

Recruiter Pre-screen (20-30 mins) – Non-technical. Chat about your resume and background. Get ready to answer questions like Why #google? What's your biggest achievement? Why are you leaving your current job?
Technical Phone Screens (40-60 mins) – One or two phone screens with the hiring manager or a Google employee. You'll solve a coding question related to #datastructures and #algorithms on a shared Google Doc. Some questions on your background.
Onsite Loop (4-5 interviews) – #coding and #systemdesign questions. Expect questions related to slightly harder data structure, algorithms, and system design.

Google evaluates candidates on 4 criteria:

1. Googleyness

Googleyness means putting the user first, being friendly, approachable, humble, doing something nice for others, being proactive, and keeping your eye on the goal. You'll be judged for being a team player and having a bias for action.

2. General Congnitive Ability

Your ability to solve problems and explain your thought process. Expect open-ended questions like how would you optimize this further? The interviewer wants to know how you learn and adapt to a situation.

3. Leadership

Your ability to take on tough problems and step back when it's not needed. They'll gauge if you can mobilize a team to solve a difficult problem. Get ready to answer questions like, how have you demonstrated leadership when you weren't the manager? how have you dealt with trade-offs and ambiguity?

Is your technical expertise sufficient to drive impact at Google? How will you grow and scale with Google?

Interview Tips

Data Structures - Practice Heaps, HashTable, Tree, Stack, Queue, Graph, and Trie.
Algorithm - Practice Dynamic Programming, Quick-Sort, Breadth-first and Depth-first search.
Explain your thought process - Practice describing your design decisions clearly and concisely.
Collaborate – Don't forget to discuss tradeoffs, present multiple solutions, and take hints from the interviewer.