I applied online. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Jun 2010
Interview
Interviewed with recruiter online first, then group member, then on-site interview. Associates in the group were very friendly and the recruiter did an excellent job of keeping me updated on the process.
My first two phone interviews went very well, and I let my recruiter know of a couple of days and times that would be convenient for me to interview on-site. She jumped at the opportunity and I had my on-site interview, which also went very well. Several of my interviewers said as much, and my recruiter told me that they liked me "a lot." However, I learned after the interview that the team was not sure if they were actually going to fill the position and that the position had been put "on hold." She very kindly kept in touch with me in the ensuing weeks until, ultimately, the department decided not to fill the position at all.
I felt dismayed that Google took me in for an on-site interview for a position that had not yet been approved. Since I am already employed, I was taking a day off from work (and thus a day away from my bank for interviews- I waited two weeks to interview with another company that could have met with me on that day in order to put Google on my schedule). I felt that this was very inconsiderate. Perhaps if I had been a more inspiring candidate the story would have been different, but since this was a relatively entry level position and I am sure there were many very qualified applicants, I take what they said about deciding to leave the spot empty at face value.
- Asked foundational questions about key definitions and terminology to assess baseline understanding of core concepts
- Completed a timed online coding assessment covering practical programming challenges and problem-solving ability
30 minute phone screen with HR, followed by an interview with the hiring manager. HR would not even provide a salary range for the role, which was very weird. The HR rep was not familiar with the role and seemed to be reading from the JD when I asked questions about it.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Google (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2021
Interview
Recruiter screen > tech screen > 5 tech sessions at remote "onsite"
Tech screen: all statistics written in easy python
On-site: python for SQL-style queries, one session focused on stats/probability, majority of sessions had some probability in it, some question were extremely open ended, hierarchical statistical models, optimization and creating penalty functions, bootstrapping, small sample statistics
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
you are given a discrete probability distribution of children, what is the probability a random women you meet on the street has a sister?
Two variables x1 and x2. They are correlated but aren't the same. X3 = X1-X2 and X4 = X1+X2. What are the coefficients for x1 and x2 if you train logit for x3 and x4
1000 ad videos, 1000 human raters
Assess the quality of videos, 100 randomly selected videos to each rater, Rate video between 1 (bad) and 10 (good) quality. How would you rate these? What are the pros and cons of your strategy?
clustered statistical modeling question about how you would set data up for this model and what model you would use.