Interview Experiences

Real candidates, real loops: every round, what was asked, and how it ended.

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127 stories

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GoogleSoftware Engineer
Sep 2026

Two Onsite Coding Rounds and Communication Friction

r1 Given a connections array, where connections[x] is a list representing the neighboring nodes of x in a graph, and a broken value representing a damaged node, return the minimum number of nodes that must be traversed from start to destination without passing through broken. The solution could use DFS or BFS. I used DFS. The follow-up allowed traversal through broken nodes. r2 Implement a word p…

In progressOnsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Aug 2026

An L4 Loop Downleveled to L3

I recently interviewed for Google L4 R1 and R2. After the interviews, I was downleveled to L3. Round 1 Coding: Given a file system containing directories and files, where each file has a size and each directory contains files or another directory, calculate the total entity size for a given ID that may identify either a directory or a file. It was somewhat like a wrapped version of LeetCode 339.…

In progressOnsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer III
Added Aug 2026

Google SWE III Onsite Experience and Team Matching Timeline

I interviewed for a Google Software Engineer III position. The process included two virtual interviews followed by two onsite interviews. The first virtual round focused on Googliness and behavioral questions. I structured my answers using the STAR framework, and the recruiter later said the feedback was extremely positive. The second round was coding-focused and involved an array problem. I comp…

Onsite1
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Aug 2026

Three-Part Hiring Assessment on Work Style and Ethics

These are the latest Google Hiring Assessment questions I had just finished. They were all questions I actually received. This time I took the new version of the Google Hiring Assessment. There was no coding, and it mainly had three parts. Part One: Most Like Me / Least Like Me Each question gave three statements. First I chose the one most like me, and then I chose the one least like me from the…

Online Assessment0
GoogleSoftware EngineerSenior+
Aug 2026

Five Onsite Rounds Where Follow-Ups Decide Everything

I've been lurking for a long time, and this time I picked up a lot of good material from the forum before my own interview, so I'm posting this to give back. I'm using the forum's usual numeric code-names for the problems, so bear with me. Google's pacing is very different from Meta's. Each round is 45 minutes with basically one main question, and the rest of the time is all follow-ups — the inte…

Onsite1
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Aug 2026

L4 Virtual Onsite, 12 Minutes of Coding on a Vague String-Templating Question

First round VO, coding — the interviewer gave me this question: given a KV map and a string where keys are marked as indices, replace the parts of the string wrapped in %% with the corresponding value from the KV map: {USER=>admin, HOME=>/%USER%/home} Input: I am %USER% My home is %HOME% Output: I am admin My home is /admin/home Then he had me come up with edge cases. My first thought was: if we…

RejectedOnsite0
GoogleSoftware EngineerSenior+
Aug 2026

An Unconventional Python Tee Iterator Question

Not sure if I just had bad luck, or if the L5 question bank is just different, but I got hit with a really unconventional question. No small talk, no self-introductions, straight into the coding problem. The task was to implement Python's tee iterator — you're given an iterator and need to return n independent iterators from it. I had to define my own functions and classes for it, so it had a bit…

Technical Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Aug 2026

Phone Screens Then Three Onsite Rounds Including an AI Agent Rate Limiter

Phone Screen 1: Coding — Car Rental Optimization Given N cars and a set of rental requests, where each request has pickupTime, returnTime, and id, you need to assign cars to these requests to maximize vehicle utilization while using as few cars as possible. The same car can serve multiple requests as long as their times don't overlap. If one request returns the car at time 5 and another picks up…

Onsite0
GoogleSoftware EngineerSenior+
Jul 2026

Two Onsite Rounds, Team Matching in Progress

Round 1 Coding (45 min): Job Processing Schedule with priority. Higher-priority jobs get processed first. Asked to implement a class with two APIs, addJob and getJob. Follow-up: add a delay to each job — for example, after job A is processed, it can't be processed again until at least 3 getJob API invocations have happened. BQ (45 min): Standard behavioral questions — the biggest challenge I ran…

In progressOnsite0
GoogleForward Deployed Engineer
Jul 2026

Agentic System Design and a Coding Round That Turned Into 2D DP

The Google FDE interview mainly had two rounds. One round was basically an agentic system design round — just a casual chat with the interviewer about problems in agent system design. Questions included how to scale the agent, how to keep it safe, and what to do about agent infinite loops. The other round was SDE coding, and this is the one I really want to vent about. At first I felt pretty good…

Technical Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Jul 2026

Rejected, Then an R1 Invite Two Weeks Later

I got the referral from a friend for the SWE III role. Three days after I applied I was already rejected — but then two weeks later the recruiter suddenly sent me an R1 invite, so I went ahead and did the interview. Coding — no self-introduction, straight into the problem. The question was roughly: given a graph where every edge has a safety value, and a given safety threshold, find the minimum s…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Jul 2026

Ran Out of Time on an Onsite Coding Round, Talked Through the Answer Instead

Just finished my Google onsite. Something came up in one of the coding rounds, and I want to ask the folks and interviewers here on the forum how they'd read this: r2, first question: the piano-finger-movement problem (sliding window, similar to finding a monotonic interval / window coverage). First part: I wrote the code fast, dry-ran the interviewer's three test cases live plus a couple of edge…

In progressOnsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Google Software Engineer interview with four final-loop sessions

My first step was a relaxed recruiter conversation of about half an hour. We discussed my background, school or earlier experience, and what was ahead. Then I completed a 45-minute technical screening coding challenge where how I organized and explained my reasoning mattered as much as reaching an answer. The final loop had four 45-minute interviews, usually spread across one or two days so it wo…

Technical Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Google Software Engineer interview: algorithm rounds and delayed feedback

The process felt complicated and drawn out. After the early steps, I had a couple of algorithm-focused meetings with technical reviewers and an HR personal questionnaire. There were long gaps without updates, and I received no constructive feedback once it was over. Some early steps seemed smooth, but after submitting my materials I couldn't tell when they'd be reviewed or how long the decision w…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Software Engineer interview at Google: long formal loop

The process took roughly one to two months, then extended further through team matching. It began with CV screening and a technical coding phone interview, followed by an onsite loop with several 45-minute coding interviews, architecture discussions, and Googliness questions. After the interviews came a formal hiring-committee stage and team matching, with a proposal only if a team aligned. The m…

0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Google Software Engineer interview: detailed feedback on same-day coding

After a recruiter pre-screen, I had a tightly scheduled interview day with limited breaks. It combined a structured technical conversation with a behavioral STAR-style interview, leaving enough time to reset but not enough for the day to feel casual. I then had two LeetCode-like coding interviews on the same day with another short gap. In each, I was expected to think through an approach, align o…

HR Screen0
GoogleProduct Manager
Reported Jul 2026

Google Product Manager interview: cold early interview and silence

After an initial suitability call, I waited a couple of weeks for a first knowledge-based interview. Recruiter communication beforehand was supportive, but the interviewer came across as cold and professional, and I did not make it past that stage. In a separate early round, I had to drive the problem myself in a tight 30-minute window: identify constraints, explain an approach, propose solutions…

RejectedHR Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Google Software Engineer interview: online coding and team matching

After a recruiter chat, I completed the process online. The phone screen mixed behavioral discussion with a technical component, then a separate technical round asked me to solve two LeetCode-style questions in a language I chose from Python, C++, or Java. Behavioral questions also appeared alongside coding. Two later calls became somewhat harder but retained the same live DSA problem-solving for…

HR Screen0
GoogleProduct Manager
Reported Jul 2026

Google Product Manager interview: practical-depth bar

The process felt long and hard from the outset. After the initial stages, the technical questions required real hands-on product experience. I could not have relied on generic product language to answer them confidently or accurately. The challenge was also organizing my thinking under pressure while remaining precise. Follow-up questions kept probing until I connected my reasoning to real-world…

0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Google Software Engineer interview: recruiter screen and four linear rounds

The process began with recruiter screening, where we covered my background, the role, and what the interview path would look like. After that, there were four rounds in a clear sequence. The first mixed a Googliness-style discussion with coding. The following rounds added two more coding interviews. Team matching only came into the picture after the coding rounds were done. The route felt linear:…

HR Screen0

What are interview experiences?

An interview experience is a candidate's own account of a hiring loop — not a question bank entry. It tells you the shape of the process: how many rounds there were, what each round actually tested, how long the gaps between them ran, and what the recruiter said at the end. That context is the part a question list cannot give you.

How to read them

Weight recent write-ups more heavily — interview loops change, often within a year. Read several for the same company and role rather than one: a single account tells you what one interviewer asked, while five tell you what the bar is. Note the outcome badge too, since a rejection write-up usually explains the gap far more precisely than an offer one.

Share your own

Every published experience earns 50 XP, and each of the first 3 likes it receives in a day earns you 10 XP more. Likes must come from established accounts; like-for-like swaps and likes from your own second account are not paid. Write it while the details are fresh — the round order, the exact prompts, and how much time you were given are what the next reader needs.

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