Interview Experiences

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

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153 stories

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GoogleBusiness Analyst
Reported Jun 2026

Google Business Analyst data interview with DSA and modeling pressure

My first substantial technical step was data-heavy and more intense than I expected. The data interview included DSA and modeling questions, and the bar was reasoning under pressure, not just getting a final answer. One example looked like a simple arithmetic statement at first but was actually wrong, so I had to deal with that confusion while staying accurate. The interviewer continued with inte…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
GoogleResearch ScientistSenior+
May 2026

Three Research Chats and an Unexpected Rejection

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
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

L4 Onsite, Rejected After Falling Back to Brute Force

I interviewed for Google L4 a few months ago and got rejected after the onsite coding rounds. Sharing it here as a reference for anyone coming after me. R1: Merge two nodes (each node has three fields: name, value, children). The core rule is to use t1's node order but t2's node values. 1. In the merged node, name comes from t1 and value comes from t2. 2. Children with the same name are matched o…

RejectedOnsite0
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

Failed Onsite Coding on a No-Feedback Maze That Needed BFS Over Belief States

The final feedback was that my coding wasn't good enough. It was a BFS problem, and I didn't think of that at first. You're given a maze: # is a wall, . is an open path, E is the exit. The only commands are up / down / left / right, and each one moves you one cell. Key rules: If you hit a wall you stay where you are (that's not a failure, you just stay in place). Execution gives no feedback at al…

RejectedOnsite0
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 EngineerSenior+
Reported Mar 2026

Two Coding Rounds, Two System Designs and a Month Waiting for Team Match

Interview Process: A friend referred me in October, and in the middle of November a Google recruiter phoned me. That first call is what started the whole thing. Two virtual rounds came next, a Googliness interview with a hiring manager and my first system design round, both held in the second week of December. Once I passed them, the onsite was set for the first week of January. Google is back to…

OfferOnsite0
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

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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