Interview Experiences

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

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110 stories

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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 Engineer
Jul 2026

Late Coding Interviewer, Passed Round 1 the Next Day

Overall the experience was really good. The recruiter was very warm. The behavioral interview asked about the project I'm proudest of, how I deal with diversity, and a hypothetical: how would I spark my coworkers' creativity. If a question is hypothetical, the interviewer says up front that it's hypothetical. The coding interviewer almost stood me up twice. Luckily the second time the recruiter n…

In progressTechnical Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Jul 2026

Referral, Team-Specific Loop and a Visible-People Array Problem

Google's process looks like it has changed. I got a referral and interviewed for a specific team. The interview process was broken into 2 rounds: Round 1 a standard Leetcode problem on a text editor that doesn't compile behavioral Round 2 solutions design (similar to system design, but less ambiguous) a Leetcode problem The question I got in round 1 had two parts. Part 1: Given an array of height…

Technical Screen0
GoogleSoftware EngineerSenior+
Jul 2026

Conflicting Spreadsheet Instructions and a Stressful Onsite

I interviewed for Applied AI. I don't know why a senior-level interview had only two coding rounds and one system-design round. Questions: Coding 1: Spreadsheet, implementing set_cell / get_cell. Coding 2: Google Shop System design: A customer-service system where users talk to a virtual agent and can escalate to a human. The recruiter's feedback was that, of the three rounds, Coding 1 and system…

RejectedOnsite0
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
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
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
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
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Google Software Engineer interview: varying difficulty and interviewer tone

One Google path started with an online assessment and then an interview if accepted. My question was LeetCode medium to hard, although I had heard that others received easier ones. My first interviewer was somewhat rude, which made it harder to stay comfortable and confident while working through the problem. I also encountered a recruiter-led path with a pre-interview stage followed by two short…

Online Assessment0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Google Software Engineer interview: four scenario-heavy technical rounds

I expected a standard coding and behavioral loop, but Google put me through four technical deep dives that were much more scenario heavy. I presented a real customer issue, then completed a cognitive-analysis-style round that asked how I would begin thinking about large-scale infrastructure. The next technical discussions covered infrastructure or platform and AI-related problem solving. I was ex…

Technical Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Google Software Engineer interview

The process began with a background questionnaire and an online interview with DSA and behavioral rounds. The DSA question was practical rather than a typical LeetCode problem, and I handled it well. Later, the onsite questions were closer to LeetCode, a shift I had not studied enough for. A system-design mock also felt mismatched because its problem did not resemble what I saw later. Scheduling…

Technical Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Google Software Engineer interview: hardware panel and uneven technical difficulty

The interview focused on technical depth rather than only classic software problem solving. The panel was made up of hardware engineers, and the topics ranged across VLSI, analog work, and design engineering. It felt like a real technical discussion, and the interviewers seemed to engage with my answers instead of waiting for a memorized response. One question genuinely threw me off because it fe…

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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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