Google New Grad Software Engineer Interview Experience — BQ, ML Domain, and a Mahjong-Winning-Hand Coding Question

Google·Software Engineer·Mar 2026
OnsiteHR ScreenTechnical ScreenNew GradIn progressmedium

Timeline:

  • 2025/12/23: HR reached out and asked me to send my latest transcript.
  • 2026/01/05: Another HR emailed to set up a brief chat.
  • 2026/01/14: HR chat — mainly asked about my research area and explained the interview format. They said it's basically one BQ round plus three coding rounds, or one BQ round plus one ML domain round plus two coding rounds, split into two big loops. I chose one BQ round plus one ML domain round plus two coding rounds.
  • 2026/01/26: First big loop, a virtual onsite — back to back, two rounds: BQ and ML domain.
  • 2026/01/29: HR followed up to schedule the second big loop, the onsite.
  • 2026/02/24: Google MP3 Bay Area onsite, back to back two coding rounds. First round: a really nice interviewer gave me a problem kind of like playing mahjong — given a 14-digit array, determine whether it's a winning hand. Second round: another really nice interviewer gave me a dictionary and a prefix string, and asked me to return all the words in the dictionary that start with that prefix. Communication really matters here — it's totally fine if you don't have the idea right away, just talk through it with the interviewer as you go.
  • 2026/03/03: HR followed up with the team-match form, and scheduled two HM calls.

Overall my Google interview experience was really good. Thanks to every interviewer along the way — they were all supportive and helpful.

Published

Curated and edited by PracHub

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Interview at a glance

Company
Google
Role
Software Engineer
Level
New Grad
Rounds
HR Screen → Technical Screen → Onsite
Outcome
In progress
Difficulty
medium
Interview date
Mar 2026
Questions from this interview
2 questions

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