My Google Interview Experience for Winter Internship (6-month internship)

From Googling things to working at Google (routine title, isn’t it? )

Short intro about me at the time of the offer: Pursuing BTech fourth year at KL University. I completed my summer internship at Amazon as an SDE and received a Pre-Placement offer.

This blog contains the timeline and my experience with Google Interviews.

Timeline:

July 18: Applied on Google careers portal with a referral.

Aug 12: I got a recruiter email regarding some basic information like graduation date, availability for the internship, college permission, and my offers if I had. (Approx 1 month later)

Then I had a prep call where they briefly explained the number of interviews and what to expect in an interview.

I had given my interview dates for September 1st and September 2nd.

Interviews:

September 1: Round 1

September 2: Round 2

Interview Experience:

Round 1:

The interview started with the introduction of the interviewer then followed by mine. My interviewer was top-notch in Competitive programming.

He started with a simple question on a data structure for warm-up.

Then he gave me a hard question on one data structure (Can’t reveal due to NDA).

The discussion went on for 43 mins. In the last 2mins, I was given a chance to ask any questions I had. I asked a few questions, regarding his career at Google.

Overall, the interviewer was friendly.

If we are rejected after this round, we will get a mail, and no need to give round 2.

Thankfully, I haven't received any mail, hence proceeded with 2nd round on next day.

Round 2:

I had 2 interviewers this time. One was a senior engineer at Google and the other had 1+ years of experience at Google ig.

So again, the introductions were done by the 3 of us.

The interviewer said that he will note all the points about my performance, and how I am approaching the problem.

My bad luck, the power was gone and wifi turned off. Fastly I turned on my mobile hotspot and connected to my laptop. (That’s why u need to have your mobile near your premises and ensure the volume was off).

Now I re-joined the meeting and then the interviewer gave me a problem. It was a hard problem. I started brainstorming. The good part was, I kept on discussing my approach. I took various examples and did a dry run on my algorithm which is very important.

Finally, after 40mins, I was able to write production-ready code.

My interviewer wasn't speaking a lot. But I kept on communicating my approach.

Completed my interviews. Now I was waiting for the result. In the prep call, they informed me that result will be declared in 2-weeks.

Finally, after a month I received the mail saying that I was selected for the internship.

October 7: Mail about my selection.

Though I received the mail late, I am so glad that I got selected.

So, what next: Waiting to taste the food at Google :D

Tips:

1. Communicate a lot: Though you haven’t seen that question model earlier, start trying with a brute-force approach. Take test cases and apply it to your algorithm.
2. If stuck, take help from the interviewer. (Remember, they are taking interviews to hire you)
3. Though your interviewer does not speak, make sure you communicate everything that comes to your mind. (Remember, they will observe what you speak).

That’s all guys, thanks for reading!