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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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 Engineer
Reported Mar 2026

L3 Offer on the First Attempt, DSA Rounds Only

Right now I lead tech at a small maritime startup. Google gave me an L3 offer, toward the upper end of the band, and it was my first and only try. Real system design was always my weakest area, even though I've always been decent at generalizing from specifics. Studying it properly left me calm and self-assured when the conversation turned to: how to scale reads or writes, and what each approach…

OfferOther0
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
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

A Tough Phone Screen With LC 560 and a City-Grid Islands Twist

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Technical ScreenXP0
GoogleSoftware EngineerIntern
Feb 2026

Picked Google Over Databricks, Waymo, and TikTok Offers

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OfferTechnical ScreenXP0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Passed R1, Failed R2 on a Roof-Patching Puzzle

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

A 180-Degree OCR Twist in the Onsite Loop

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OfferOnsiteXP0
GoogleData Scientist
Feb 2026

A Next-Word Predictor Coding Round Plus BQ

This round's interview question: given some training sentences, write two functions — a training function and a predictor function. The predictor function should take a word as input and output what the first word after that word could be. Example: ["I", "am", "Sam"] ["Sam", "I", "am"] ["I", "like", "green", "eggs", "and", "ham"] My approach: in the training function, use a dictionary to count ho…

HR Screen0
GoogleMachine Learning Engineer
Feb 2026

Two-Round Virtual Onsite, Rejected Over One Coding Question

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

A Smooth First Onsite, Easier Than Expected

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OnsiteXP0
GoogleSoftware Engineer, PhD InternIntern
Feb 2026

Two Back-to-Back Original Coding Rounds

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Technical ScreenXP0
GoogleData Scientist
Feb 2026

A Next-Word Predictor Coding Question and a BQ Round

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OnsiteXP0
GoogleData Scientist InternIntern
Feb 2026

Coding Round Plus a Short Manager Chat, Rejected Three Weeks Later

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RejectedHR ScreenXP0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Jan 2026

A Friendly BQ Round That Kept Digging Into Conflict and Ownership

The interviewer for this BQ round was very nice and friendly, and took notes the whole time. Overall it didn't feel like an interrogation, more like a logical conversation — they kept circling back around the same competency and probing deeper. Disagree / Conflict First asked: have you ever disagreed with someone. After I gave an example, they followed up asking how I generally deal with conflict…

HR Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Jan 2026

Inside the Hiring Assessment's Judgment Section

The assessment has two parts. The first part is the same as what earlier posts already described, so I won't repeat it here. For the second part, since earlier posts only mentioned it briefly, let me say a bit more. This section gives you a scenario and asks you to pick the action you'd be most likely and least likely to take. Here's what I got: You had a good idea about YouTube's design that you…

Online Assessment0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Jan 2026

L6/7 System Design Screen, High Score Pass

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Technical ScreenXP0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Jan 2026

Two Graph/Dijkstra Problems in the Second Technical Screen, No Onsite

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RejectedTechnical ScreenXP0

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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