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      Software Engineer Interview

      18 Nov 2013
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Google

      Interview

      Contacted through LinkedIn and passed the phone screen. Went onsite for five interviews. They asked me Systems Design - What happens during and after a query is being typed (autocomplete) in a search box whether the user is trying to go to a website or asking a question etc, and how do servers complete the request and what is the best (parallel) structure for the request to go through. DFS and how servers are located for proximity What is the best data structure for a threaded email system? Linked List. Connecting and disconnecting links to update which email arrives in order by date and time If you have data coming in rapid succession what is the best way of dealing with redundant data? A queue and a hashmap I forgot this exactly but - If you had a binary tree and only two functions getNumChildren() and getNthChild( n ) how ....(get duplicates or a certain node maybe) - The main point is to use recursion. Then was asked spatial and memory efficiency (Big O) Last one I forget but it had to do with if I had a large group of text how do I find data and shuda used a hashmap. You could probably reason a binary tree works because of space efficiency.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Search autocomplete question and how servers are distributed for max efficiency surprised me as I spent my time doing programming questions and not reading up on conceptual design knowledge
      Answer question
      6

      Other Software Engineer interview reviews for Google

      Software Engineer Interview

      4 May 2014
      Anonymous employee
      Auburndale, FL
      Accepted offer
      Positive experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Google (Auburndale, FL) in Apr 2014

      Interview

      Direct onsite because I interviewed in the past and did well that time. From the time I sent my resume to interview day: 2 weeks. From interview day to offer over the phone: 2 weeks. The syllabus for the interviews is very clear and simple: 1) Dynamic Programming 2) Super recursion (permutation, combination,...2^n, m^n, n!...etc. type of program. (NP hard, NP programs) 3) Probability related programs 4) Graphs: BFS/DFS are usually enough 5) All basic data structures from Arrays/Lists to circular queues, BSTs, Hash tables, B-Trees, and Red-Black trees, and all basic algorithms like sorting, binary search, median,... 6) Problem solving ability at a level similar to TopCoder Division 1, 250 points. If you can consistently solve these, then you are almost sure to get in with 2-weeks brush up. 7) Review all old interview questions in Glassdoor to get a feel. If you can solve 95% of them at home (including coding them up quickly and testing them out in a debugger + editor setup), you are in good shape. 8) Practice coding--write often and write a lot. If you can think of a solution, you should be able to code it easily...without much thought. 9) Very good to have for design interview: distributed systems knowledge and practical experience. 10) Good understanding of basic discrete math, computer architecture, basic math. 11) Coursera courses and assignments give a lot of what you need to know. 12) Note that all the above except the first 2 are useful in "real life" programming too! Interview 1: Graph related question and super recursion Interview 2: Design discussion involving a distributed system with writes/reads going on at different sites in parallel. Interview 3: Array and Tree related questions Interview 4: Designing a simple class to do something. Not hard, but not easy either. You need to know basic data structures very well to consider different designs and trade-offs. Interview 5: Dynamic programming, Computer architecture and low level perf. enhancement question which requires knowledge of Trees, binary search, etc. At the end, I wasn't tired and rather enjoyed the discussions. I think the key was long term preparation and time spent doing topcoder for several years (on and off as I enjoy solving the problems). Conclusion: "It's not the best who win the race; it's the best prepared who win it."
      2501

      Software Engineer Interview

      23 Jun 2026
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Positive experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Google

      Interview

      The interview process consisted of multiple stages, including an initial screening, a technical/skills assessment, and a final interview with the hiring team. Questions focused on my experience, problem-solving abilities, communication skills, and role-related knowledge. The process was well-structured and gave me a clear understanding of the position and company expectations.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Serialize and Deserialize Binary Tree
      Answer question

      Software Engineer Interview

      21 Jun 2026
      Anonymous interview candidate
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I interviewed at Google

      Interview

      Recruiter reach out after referral, scheduled first round technical Was asked about a very specific library from the programming language I picked. Couldn't remember the syntax in my head and busted.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Coding questions on tree structures
      Answer question

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