How my profile got shortlisted?
I applied for the Google APAC scholarship last year, gave my interview, and was sadly rejected in the final round. This year, the same recruiter contacted me and informed me that my profile had been chosen for the Google SWE internship in 2022, and that they had planned a couple of interview rounds without OA (online assessment). I got this mail on a random sunny day and got ecstatic!
My interviews were scheduled for two days in a row, and they were supposed to evaluate my application based on my resume + two technical interviews. After 7 days of receiving a mail, we were invited to a Google meet, where an employee from Google gave us interview tips.
How I started the preparation?
Before 3–4 months of getting this mail, I was solving questions on various coding platforms on daily basis, but due to some intern work, I got really busy and stopped doing DSA/CP. So, what I did was, I shortlisted the popular coding problems from every topic, and wrote it down in my notebook. I have collected 10 problems for each topic. I had approximately 10–12 days for the preparation. I used to solve 8–10 questions daily on LeetCode or InterviewBit.
Apart from that, I started reading Cracking The Coding Interview Book(CTCI). As I had less time, so I selected few important chapters from the book, according to my convenience, and started reading.
For mock interviews, I used to schedule my daily interviews on Pramp. Also, I texted few people from Google on LinkedIn and asked them to take my mock, and it really helped me in getting a genuine feedback.
1st Interview Round Experience
My interviewer gave me a brief introduction before diving right into the coding portion. He didn’t ask me to introduce myself, but they do in some cases. He asked me a binary tree-related question. I need to find the longest ascending AP sequence from the root to any node. I gave him two approaches and then used recursion to code the optimised approach. He extended the question and asked 2–3 questions related to that (he only asked about the approaches) after discussing time complexity and space complexity. The interview lasted 45 minutes.
Finally, he asked if I had any questions for him, so I inquired about his experience working at Google.
2nd Interview Round Experience
The interviewer was 5 minutes late in this round due to technical difficulties, so he skipped right to the coding section. But, before asking me a question, he said to me in a friendly tone, “Don’t be nervous, we don’t just want the solution, we want how you’re approaching that particular problem.”
I was given a mathematical formula and told to look for a pattern. It was essentially a binary search problem. He asked me in a difficult manner. I got the approach after a few minutes of discussion. I told him about the approaches I was considering. He asked me about the time and space complexities of each approach, and then he asked me to code the final one in Binary Search. He asked me 2–3 extended questions from the same problem, and then I code them also.
This interview also went for 45 minutes.
My Experience
My experience was fantastic; I learned a lot, met new people, talked with them, gave mocks, and received feedback. So, all in all, it was a fantastic experience. Following these interviews, I noticed that my coding had improved significantly (even more than significantly) simply by practising for 10–12 days. In general, coding interviews are not about writing the correct code; they are about how you approach the problem and whether you understand the fundamentals of time and space complexities.
Result
Got rejected. According to the feedback I received, both of my interviews went in the opposite direction. My coding ability was very strong in the first one, but my problem-solving ability was on the edge. In second round, the problem-solving ability was very strong, but coding ability was just on the edge.
That’s all about my experience.
You can ping me on LinkedIn for any tips/advice, I would love to help.
Connect with me through the portfolio link given in the bio.
