google | Software Engineer | Interview Experience
Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Not specified
Difficulty: Not specified
Interview Process
In early October, I completed an online assessment for Google. By the end of October, I participated in two technical interviews. I was notified a week after the interviews that I passed the technical portion and am currently awaiting the team matching phase.
The first interview was conducted by an interviewer from abroad. The question was to find two indices, i and j, in an array (e.g., [1, 2, 3, 2, 5, 3]) such that i != j and array[i] = array[j]. The task was to calculate the maximum sum of the subarray from array[i] to array[j]. Although I missed some corner cases during the coding process, I was able to convey my thought process clearly to the interviewer, who was very nice and conversational.
The second interview was with a female interviewer from China, who was also very pleasant. The question involved implementing serialization and deserialization for a list of strings, which could contain any numbers and symbols. I was able to clarify my thought process and write the code step-by-step, although the interviewer pointed out some corner cases and minor oversights.
Technical Questions
- Given an array, such as [1, 2, 3, 2, 5, 3], find two indices i and j where i != j and array[i] = array[j]. Calculate the maximum sum of the subarray from array[i] to array[j]. (Hash Map, Array, Greedy)
- Implement two functions: serialize and deserialize. (String, Encoding, Decoding)
Tips & Insights
The overall interview experience at Google was very positive. I hope to secure an offer soon!