Interview experience

Google · Software Engineer · Mid-Level

Community-sourced A factual summary of an interview experience shared publicly outside interviewd.

Nov 1

In Progress

Overall Experience

A phone coding interview with a path-existence warmup and a safest-path problem on a grid with a cat, a Googlyness phone round, and two onsite coding rounds on rectangle area, job scheduling, and range-uniqueness queries. The record gives the prompts and examples but not the candidate responses or the outcome.

4 rounds

Posted by interviewd

Interview Process (4 rounds)

Round 1 of 4: Coding / DSA

60 min

Question 1

Medium

Warmup: given an N x N grid with a start S, an endpoint T, and impassable water cells, determine whether a path exists from S to T that moves only horizontally or vertically.

Experience

The record lists the warmup prompt. The candidate answer is not described.

Question 2

Medium

Given an N x N grid with a mouse start S, cheese T, a cat C, impassable water (#), and passable land (.), the mouse moves up, down, left, or right on land only. The safety of a path is the minimum Manhattan distance from any cell on the path to C. Find a path from S to T that maximizes this safety value, and output the maximum value, or -1 if T is unreachable.

Input: N, then N grid rows; exactly one each of S, T, and C.
Example: "3" with rows "S..", ".#.", "C.T" gives 2.
Constraints: 1 <= N <= 500.

Experience

The record lists the problem and example. The candidate solution is not described.

60 min

Question 1

Medium

Why do you want to work at Google, and what would you do if you do not pass this time?

Experience

The record lists the prompt. The candidate answer is not described.

Question 2

Medium

If you were a manager, what would you expect from other managers and how would you practice that yourself? How would you handle project delivery, balance management and employee interests, and decide when to put in extra effort?

Experience

The record lists the prompt. The candidate answer is not described.

60 min

Question 1

Medium

Given n distinct integer-coordinate points, choose any four points that form a rectangle (sides need not be axis-parallel). Return the maximum area among all rectangles that can be formed, or 0 if none can be formed. The record notes this is similar to LeetCode 963 but asks for the maximum area.

Input: n, then n lines "x y". Constraints: 4 <= n <= 50; coordinates in [-40000, 40000].
Example: points (0,0), (2,0), (2,1), (0,1) give 2.

Experience

The record lists the problem and example. The candidate solution is not described.

60 min

Question 1

Medium

Given n jobs, each with a start time, end time, and profit, choose a set of non-overlapping jobs that maximizes total profit. A job ending at the exact time another starts is compatible with it.

Input: n, then n lines "startTime endTime profit". Output: the maximum total profit.
Example: jobs (1,3,50), (2,4,10), (3,5,40), (3,6,70) give 120.
Constraints: 1 <= n <= 100000; times and profits are positive integers.

LeetCode equivalent

Experience

The record lists the problem and example. The candidate solution is not described.

Question 2

Medium

Given a static integer array nums, answer multiple inclusive range queries [l, r] by reporting whether every value in nums[l..r] is unique. Preprocess the array so that each query takes O(1) time, with 0-based indices.

Input: n, then the n integers; q, then q lines "l r". Output: true or false per query.
Constraints: 1 <= n, q <= 100000; 0 <= l <= r < n.
The record's example output for the third query conflicts with the rule and is not used.

Experience

The record lists the requirement to preprocess for constant-time queries and the multiple-query follow-up. The candidate solution is not described.

Sort by:

Loading comments…