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Yashika Jotwani
Yashika Jotwani

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Interviewing at Google: My Experience! 💻

Job Description

As per mentioned in the mail** 

Role: Software Engineer | Type: Winter Internship - January 2023 | Duration: 6 months | Location: Hyderabad or Bangalore

1️⃣ How I got this opportunity?

I saw this opportunity opening on LinkedIn for 2023 graduates, I asked for a referral before applying, and fortunately got a referral. After like 20 days of applying, I got an email asking for confirmation so they could set up interviews with me.

2️⃣ Summary of the Interviews:

Round 1 (45 Mins):
This interview got rescheduled and it happened after my 2nd Interview.
The interview began with a brief introduction. The question was Leetcode Hard+ (DP On Trees). I took some time to understand the problem, and I started with the basic Brute Force, and the interviewer asked me to code that only. I did code the solution, but it was an exponential time complexity, and I informed the interviewer of the optimal solution but could not code it due to a lack of time (due to an internet issue, we wasted some time rejoining).

Round 2 (45 Mins):
It was a Graph Leetcode Medium (but with a heck of a lot of edge cases). I immediately came up with an algorithm, but as I began to explain it, I realized that it was not the correct approach. After realizing this, I correctly built the solution using the hints the interviewer provided (he was very helpful in pointing me toward the solution). I initially struggled, but I eventually wrote the code, and the interviewer was satisfied. After that, we spoke about a lot of edge cases, and I had a great time in this round. I must say, he was an amazing interviewer.

3️⃣ What Resources did I followed for my Preparation?

4️⃣ What Went Well :

  • I felt fairly confident going into both rounds (thanks to Mock Interviews).
  • I was able to take up hints.
  • I did took it as a discussion and explained everything outloud.
  • I asked sufficient questions where I thought to get clearer with the problem.
  • As the actual interviews take place on Google Docs (a bit different than the docs we use), I have practiced coding some amount of the questions on it.

5️⃣ What Didn't Go Well and Why:

  • I didn't do a good job of covering edge cases.
  • I believe my code might have been written lot better.
  • I should have looked at more Dynamic Programming problems (Dp on trees, 3D Dp etc).

6️⃣ Here are some pointers that were useful to me:

  • I've used LeetCode a lot before, so I didn't need to check into fundamental problems at the last minute.
  • I practised writing code using correct naming conventions and driver functions in Google Docs.
  • I did sufficient mock interviews.
  • I spoke with a few people who had previously done Google interviews.
  • I read numerous blogs.
  • I didn't complete questions for all DSA Topics, but I did complete one with Google Tagged Questions and Topics and concentrated on a specific group of resources.

7️⃣ These are some Google Code Review Guidelines:

  • The interactions of various pieces of your code should make sense.
  • You should write the code as per your discussion and what you intended.
  • You should pick good names for everything.
  • The code you write should be testable.
  • You should think of various test cases.
  • You should write comments in understandable English.

8️⃣ Result:

Rejected

9️⃣ How I felt?

It was a wonderful experience. The interviewers were friendly and made the entire process quite pleasant, and I learned what I needed to improve on.
Additionally, getting this interview chance is a big personal achievement for me. I will always be thankful to the individual who referred me and the others who helped me and took my mock interviews.

🔟 You can reach me at:

🌼 LinkedIn
🌼 GitHub
🌼 Twitter
🌼 Leetcode

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