Google | Software Engineer | Interview Experience
Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Pass
Difficulty: Neutral to Hard
Interview Process
The interview process began with an application submitted at the end of September, followed by scheduling within four days. There were three technical rounds, conducted back-to-back, with an additional tie-breaker round added the next day. The process concluded in mid-October, with the final decision communicated by the end of October.
Technical Questions
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Streak Determination (Array, Sliding Window)
- Problem: Given an action sequence within a specific time interval, determine if it qualifies as a streak based on defined conditions (e.g., minimum consecutive actions, time constraints).
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Water Tile Flooding
- Problem: Given the locations of water outlets, identify which tiles will be flooded. The initial approach was suboptimal, using a brute force algorithm.
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Count the Squares
- Problem: Design a data structure to count the number of squares in a given grid. The solution involved using a mesh and brute force logic, focusing on the requirement that a square needs four edges and four vertices.
Tips & Insights
To prepare for the interview, I completed around 50 LeetCode problems to refresh my Python skills. It’s essential to practice coding by hand, especially if you’ve been using language models frequently, as it can affect clarity in written coding tasks.