Google Data Scientist Interview Experience — A Streak-Counting Problem, Then Straight Into Behavioral

Google·Data Scientist·Jan 2025
Technical Screeneasy

The technical interview was with an interviewer who showed up a little late. After introducing themselves, they went straight into coding.

Count the number of segments in an event sequence that satisfy the "super streak" condition. The conditions: the number of consecutive events of the same type must be >= N, the gap between adjacent events must be <= T, and the total duration must be >= X.

Walk through the event sequence while tracking the current streak's type, its start time, the event count, and the time of the previous event. When the event type changes or the gap exceeds the limit, check whether the streak that just ended satisfies the super-streak condition. After the traversal finishes, check the last streak too.

That was the only question. I spent a bit of time clarifying two points before I actually started writing code. There was still time left, so they gave me a follow-up: what if N, T, and X change partway through the sequence? The answer is to keep the current parameters in the state — when they change, close out the current streak and start a new one with the new parameters.

The hints I'd been given ahead of time were pretty thorough, and since I'd already done a mock round, things felt pretty in sync.

The behavioral interview was with another interviewer. This part gets personal so I won't go into much detail — it was mostly about teamwork, why I chose Google, how I performed on my team, and communication with people above and below me. Just prep with the STAR method ahead of time. If you stumble, I'll give you a hint — don't panic, just be confident.

Published

Curated and edited by PracHub

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Interview at a glance

Company
Google
Role
Data Scientist
Rounds
Technical Screen
Difficulty
easy
Interview date
Jan 2025
Questions from this interview
1 question

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