Roadmap of Google Interview Process

Apply -> Initial Phone Screen (Work talk + rapid fire of above questions) -> Telephonic interview through Google meet (45 min and coding related) -> 5 Onsites (Google meet)

Algorithms Based Questions

1. What is the disadvantage of mergesort?
2. which is better merge sort/quick sort ?
3. Worst case complexity of quick sort?
4. How does merge sort work (Divide and conquer)
5. What’s best/ worst running time for Merge Sort?
6. What’s average / worst running time for Quick Sort?
7. What’s the worst behavior of Quicksort? How can it be triggered?
8. Lower bound on number of comparisons done in a typical sorting algorithm? Ans: O(nlog(n))
9. Worst case for insertion in hash table? What about average case?
10. Worst case complexity of look up time in self balancing BST? What about in normal BST?
11. Examples of self balancing BST
12. How is priority queue implemented (Min/Max heap)
13. For an unweighted graph, which algorithm should be used to find shortest path: breath first search or Dijkstras?
14. What’s the worst running time for a look up in a Hashtable?
15. Could you name an implementation of Hashtable?
16. Examples of height balanced tree
17. Data structure to implement the priority queue
18. When do you use a queue? BFS, DFS, or recursion
19. Worst case time complexity for lookup in a self-balancing binary search tree
20. Which of the following is an inefficient sorting algorithm? Quicksort, Merge sort, Insertion sort, Bubble Sort
21. Examples of height balanced tree
22. Find the shortest complete alphabet in a string of a given a alphabet and string. O(n).
23. Replacing instances of words in a string by passing in configuration.
24. How to compute the key of an doubly encrypted encryption algorithm given a plaintext string and encrypted cypher where the key is an integer.
25. Sum of two large integers gives as strings.
26. Implementing stack, java basics, find out whether a binary tree is a mirror image of itself or not
27. What is the estimated value of 2^24 (give a mental roadmap of how you arrived at its value, hint: 2^24 = 2^4*(2^10)^2 = 16*(10^3)^2 = 16 million)

System Design Based Questions

1. How do you handle multiple requests to a server (Load Balancing/Message Queue/Producer-Consumer model)
2. What is the diff between normalized and unnormalized?
3. Give examples of hashing in system design (Consistent hashing, rendezvous hashing, etc)

Java Based Questions

1. What is reference?
2. Name 2 implementations of hashtable in Java
3. Does Java support multiple inheritance?
4. In Java, could you name two Map implementations?

Genereal Questions

1. why google and why this position.
2. Why are you interested in Google?
3. What’s your career goal in 5 years?
4. What do you want to improve the most?
5. What is you proudest accomplishment so far?
6. What are you most excited about working for Google and this role? 
7. Tell me about yourself.
8. What does your current role entail?
9. Why do you want to work for Google?
10. Tell me what you know about Google’s history.
11. Do you think that using legal names when setting up a Gmail account should be mandatory?
12. How do you think digital marketing will change in the next five years?
13. If you needed to find a given integer in a circularly sorted array of integers, how would you go about it?
14. Do you think Google should be charging for its productivity apps (Google Docs, Google Sheets, etc.)? Why or why not?
15. Tell me something about yourself that you didn’t include on your resume.
16. If an extremist video makes its way onto YouTube, how do you think it should be handled?
17. Tell me about a time where you and a manager were in conflict. How did you ultimately resolve the problem?
18. What is multithreaded programming?
19. How would you describe Adwords to someone completely unfamiliar with the product and online advertising?
20. If you were tasked with increasing Gmail’s user base, what steps would you take to make that happen?
21. Describe a technical issue you once encountered. How did you solve it?
22. Tell me about three non-Google sites that you visit frequently. What do you like about them?
23. How do cookies pass along in HTTP protocol?
24. Explain the function of congestion control in TCP protocol.
25. If an advertiser wasn’t seeing the benefit of Adwords due to poor conversions, how would you convince them to stay on board?
26. Pick an app on your phone’s home screen. What do you like about it? What do you dislike about it?
27. What steps would you take to enhance YouTube’s business model?
28. Describe a time where you failed at something. How did you recover?
29. Why do you think that the Google search page is so mainly blank?
30. How would you describe a balance sheet to someone who isn’t familiar with accounting principles?
31. If you were working with a client who suddenly became hesitant about transitioning to a cloud solution, what steps would you take to put their minds at ease?
32. What is the biggest threat Google faces today?
33. If there was an autosuggest issue for searches in a developing country, what steps would you take to resolve it?
34. Tell me about an area where you believe Google is underinvested.
35. Describe a time when a project was being overwhelmed by scope creep. What steps did you take to get it back on target?

Tips and Interview Process

For people who are confused between initial phone screen and telephonic interview. Google holds both. First a recruiter (HR) reaches out to you and talks about your work experience, skills, preferred language, etc. Then she fires a quick round of short questions (This post is regarding this interview/call). If you answer correctly all of them (except 1 or 2), then you will proceed to the telephonic interview, which is a 45 min interview where you will be asked 1 or 2 coding problems. If you clear this round too, then you will proceed to Onsites (which are 4 coding + 1 Googliness / 3 Coding + 1 System + 1 Googliness). For L3 or L4, the system design interview is optional. If you want system design, you can ask the recruiter or if you dont want you can again tell the recruiter, but the final say is yours. For L5 and above, System design is mandatory.).

Please contribute to the above list by adding in comments and lets grow together as a community. Cheers!

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