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 Engineer
Sep 2025

Cutting Squares of Cake with Binary Search

One of my interview questions: There's a table, and the top-left corner of the table is the origin (0, 0). On the table there are countless non-overlapping square cakes of different sizes. The question: how do you make one horizontal cut (parallel to the x-axis) so that after the cut, the total cake area on each side is equal? The interesting part is that all the coordinates are floats, but the s…

Onsite0
GoogleSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Sep 2025

Straight to Onsite, Rejected After One Weak Review

Referred by a friend on 4/7 for an early career role. Got an "aha" notification on 4/20, HR reached out on 5/1, and had the HR call on 5/13. No OA, no phone screen — straight to onsite. 3 coding rounds + 1 BQ round. I got lucky — all 3 coding interviewers turned out great. Round 1 was a trie problem. The problem statement wasn't very clear, and I got nervous while coding, so I forgot to store res…

RejectedOnsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Four Onsite Rounds from HashMap to OOD

Here's my interview experience: Round 1: A medium-difficulty string + hashmap question. I found the approach pretty much right away and had no trouble talking it through before I started coding. At the end there was a follow-up on how to make the code more production-ready. Round 2: An easy heap question. I basically figured out to use a heap and that solved it. The interviewer was pretty nice, a…

Onsite0
GoogleSite Reliability Engineer
Sep 2025

Coding, Networking, and a Distributed Rate Limiter

I interviewed for a Google SRE position a few days ago. The overall difficulty wasn't especially algorithm-heavy — it leaned more toward system design, real-world troubleshooting, and coding. Interview content Coding (LeetCode style) They asked a string-processing question: given a log file where each line is "timestamp, user, action," count the number of sessions per user. It was a variant of "g…

Onsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Two OA Questions, No Hidden Test Cases

I finally got my Google OA, and I'm posting here right after finishing it. This OA had 2 questions total, 90 minutes, which keeps Google's usual style. Both questions were not too difficult overall. Problem 1 (paraphrased) You have a one-dimensional board, and each cell can be in one of three states: empty, a piece, or a coin. On each turn, you can choose any piece and move it 3 cells to the righ…

In progressOnline Assessment0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Interviewer Told Me Mid-Round I'd Failed the Parentheses DP Problem

Round 1: The input is a string made up of parentheses and numbers, something like "(( ))2 )1( )". Index: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Element: ( ( ) ) 2 ) 1 ( ) Say the index of a number is i — for example the number 2 is at index 4, and the number 1 is at index 6. For a given number, you have to pick: Exactly that many parentheses to remove. For the number 2, you pick two parentheses from before it and rem…

RejectedOnsite0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Aug 2025

Four Technical Rounds, From a Mumbled Zigzag Traversal to a Log-Eviction Design

Round 1: Technical Interview The interviewer was a guy with a really heavy accent, spoke fast, and I had a hard time understanding him. For the whole round I was basically guessing what he was asking. This round was a binary tree traversal question (a LeetCode original or a close variant). The core ask: given the root of a binary tree, implement a zigzag (sawtooth) level-order traversal. This is…

Technical Screen0
GoogleSoftware Engineer
Jul 2025

Passing the 60-Question Behavioral Online Assessment

I did it the day before, and the next day I was told I passed. This one, maybe everybody passes. There were about 60 questions total. I can't say the specific questions, so I'll just give you the gist. The types were all about behavior — things like ethics, cooperation, work attitude, and so on. There were five levels total, from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. It says it takes about 30 minu…

Online Assessment0
GoogleSite Reliability Engineer
Jul 2025

Interviewer's Test Cases Contradicted Each Other

I had a phone interview today for a Google SRE position — a DSA round. It was a question I'd already done before (an original LeetCode problem), but I'm guessing the interviewer is still going to fail me. Everyone should learn this technique for failing candidates: give a ton of test cases — looked like 8 of them. At first, since it was the original problem, I started explaining to him how to sol…

In progressTechnical Screen0
GoogleData ScientistIntern
Mar 2025

Percentile Estimation From Bucketed Search Data

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RejectedTechnical ScreenXP0
GoogleData Scientist
Mar 2025

Two Rounds, Rejected Three Weeks Later

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RejectedTechnical ScreenXP0
GoogleData Scientist
Feb 2025

Two Rounds, Rejected Three Weeks Later

I got pulled back in and then had two rounds. Interviewed in early January. The first round was coding. Three questions — I don't fully remember all the details. One was something like: you're given a random generator that can produce a uniform sample in (0,1), and you need to write a function that returns a 2-D uniform sample in the square (-1,1) x (-1,1). Treat the random generator as a functio…

RejectedOnsite0
GoogleData Scientist
Jan 2025

A Streak-Counting Problem, Then Straight Into Behavioral

The technical interview was with an interviewer who showed up a little late. After introducing themselves, they went straight into coding. Count the number of segments in an event sequence that satisfy the "super streak" condition. The conditions: the number of consecutive events of the same type must be >= N, the gap between adjacent events must be <= T, and the total duration must be >= X. Walk…

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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