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
May 2026

Three Coding Rounds and a BQ on AI Ethics

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OnsiteXP0
GoogleData Scientist
May 2026

SQL Funnel, Product Case, and an AI Agent Growth Puzzle in One Screen

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Technical ScreenXP0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
May 2026

Two Onsite Rounds, Now Heading to Team Match

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In progressOnsiteXP0
GoogleSoftware EngineerNew Grad
May 2026

Technical Screen With a Verbal-Only Second Question

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Technical ScreenXP0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
May 2026

Coding Rounds That Keep Changing the Requirements

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OnsiteXP0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Apr 2026

Hacker Rank OA With an AI-Assisted Coding Question

As the title says, I applied around the end of February this year. Last Tuesday I did the hiring assessment, and right after that the OA got sent out. It's a Hacker Rank test, and it feels pretty different from the CodeSignal OA that the earlier new-grad wave got, so I wanted to write it up and share. There are two questions total, and they explicitly said some questions let you use an AI tool, w…

In progressOnline Assessment0
GoogleSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Apr 2026

Water-Flow Paths and Good Numbers at Onsite

Software Engineer II, Early Career - United States 03/31: Applied 04/01: OA 05/14: Virtual interview R1 — behavioral questions + coding (I don't remember the question) 06/08: Got an email about next steps and scheduled a recruiter meeting 06/15: Talked with the recruiter, got the onsite details 07/14: Onsite interview R2 — coding + coding The R2 onsite questions were: Question 1: Longest Water-Fl…

Onsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Apr 2026

Periodic Table Word Puzzle Phone Screen, Two Onsite DSA Rounds

Phone Interview Given all the element symbols from the periodic table and a target word, return the total number of possible ways to compose that word using the element symbols. For example, "Physics" can be composed in the following ways: P - H - Y - Si - C - S P - H - Y - Si - Cs P - H - Y - S - I - C - S P - H - Y - S - I - Cs Onsite Round 1 (DSA) Given n players (numbered 0 to n - 1) and a se…

Onsite0
GoogleSoftware EngineerSenior+
Apr 2026

Easy Coding Question, Confusing Rename Follow-up, Rejected

Coding: convert snake_case to camelCase (e.g. foo_bar -> fooBar). The input is guaranteed to be valid snake_case (no leading underscore, no trailing underscore, no double underscore). The coding part was easy, I banged it out in under twenty lines within a few minutes, though I did spend a bit of time clarifying what counted as valid snake_case input since I wasn't totally sure what the interview…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
Google
Apr 2026

New "Most Like Me / Least Like Me" Format

There's a change — a new question type: "Most like me / Least like me"!!! I'd read another poster's thread on this before and replied there too. (Putting everything together here so people don't miss it!) I just finished the newest GHA as of 5/xx/2026. Part one is the "Most like me" and "Least like me" questions — each one gives you three statements, and they're all positive things, so it's reall…

Online Assessment0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Apr 2026

Dijkstra, Car Rental Scheduling, a Sharded Login-Logs Curveball, and a CNN/ML Systems Round

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OfferOnsiteXP0
GoogleSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Apr 2026

Two Onsite Rounds, a Cross-Country Flight, and a Wait for Team Match

My R1 report is here. On Friday I finally did the R1 BQ that had gotten postponed earlier, and then HR reached out on Monday to schedule R2. I flew in from the Midwest to Mountain View, and after finishing R2, flew straight back — I was exhausted. Interview 1 Given an array representing a gold chain, where each number is the weight of one link. You need to remove one link, reconnect the chain, an…

In progressOnsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Apr 2026

A Stuck-Keyboard String Matching Question With Three Follow-Ups

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Technical ScreenXP0
GoogleMachine Learning Engineer
Mar 2026

Weak Technical Screen, Then Onsite String Search and an LC 528 Variant

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In progressOnsiteXP0
GoogleSoftware EngineerIntern
Mar 2026

All-English First Round, No Behavioral Questions

I'm based in the US, so they set me up with an interviewer for this one, all in English. No behavioral questions, no self-introduction, straight into problems. Given a string input, return true if every subsequence of length ≥ 3 is a valid English word. I used a recursive approach and walked through the time and space complexity. Given a string input, return true if every subsequence of length ≥…

No responseTechnical Screen0
GoogleSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Mar 2026

BQ, ML Domain, and a Mahjong-Winning-Hand Coding Question

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…

In progressOnsite0
GoogleForward Deployed Engineer
Mar 2026

Rejected on Paper, Then Called Back for a Compressed Two-Round Loop

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OnsitePremium0
GoogleSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Mar 2026

Timeline From OA to Team Matching

Sharing a timeline and prep experience, hoping team matching goes well for me. Timeline 9/30 - role opened, submitted with a referral that same day 11/16 - received the OA, finished it 11/19, 11/26 next step: submit transcript 1/6 - R1 coding + BQ 1/8 - notified R1 passed, submit transcript + updated resume 1/15 - visa call (asked about status, whether I'd applied for EAD before, etc.) 2/4 - Bay…

In progressOnsite0
GoogleMachine Learning Engineer
Feb 2026

Passed General Hiring, Failed the C++ Onsite Round

Timeline: HR reached out around 1/20, interviews started around 2/10 — 4 rounds total: AI/ML technical knowledge, 2 rounds of coding, and 1 round of BQ. AI/ML Round The interviewer pulled AI/ML related content from my resume and dug into it. This round felt pretty new — the interviewer even said it was their first time doing an AI/ML round, so the pace was relatively friendly and I felt like they…

In progressOnsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Three Technical Rounds and Googleyness

First round: Technical interview Question: Add and search for words in a Trie. Because I had limited preparation time, I mainly reviewed common topics such as graph theory and dynamic programming, but I did not cover Tries. The problem was roughly about adding and searching for words. A Trie supports fast word lookup because of its tree structure, and the return behavior needed attention. I told…

Technical 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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