Updated by Google candidates
Software Engineering Intern Interview Experience
I was kind of surprised it was only two rounds. For the internship process, it was just two coding interviews, no system design, and I got heap questions in both.
Interview process
It felt pretty classical to me. What surprised me was how streamlined it was, because for the internship loop I only had two rounds. There was no system design round at all. Both interviews were basically coding rounds, and they stayed really focused on fundamentals like graphs, heaps, and prefix sums. That was the whole process for me.
- Technical interview
Interview rounds
2 questions across 2 roundsTechnical interview (1)
1 questionOverview
In the first round, they really checked my graph fundamentals. It felt like a straight coding round where they wanted to see if I could solve the problem cleanly and then handle a data-structure follow-up.
Question types asked
Specific questions asked
Solve this graph algorithm question.
Can you implement a heap for part of the solution?
They gave me a graph question and were basically checking how strong my fundamentals were. I solved the graph part, and that seemed to be the main thing they cared about in that round. After that, they followed up by asking me to implement a heap. I was able to do that too, so the round felt pretty standard but very fundamentals-heavy.
Technical interview (2)
1 questionOverview
The second round happened right after the first one and was another pure coding round. This one was very implementation-focused, with heaps again and then a prefix-sum follow-up.
Question types asked
Specific questions asked
Can you implement a min heap?
Can you also implement a prefix sum?
The second round happened right after the first one. They asked me to implement a min heap, so again it was very code-style and implementation-focused. After I finished the heap part, they gave me a follow-up to implement a prefix sum, and I did that too. That was basically the whole round, and then after the two interviews I got feedback.
Interview tips
I’d just say do NeetCode 150 or that kind of prep, because that was basically the style of the interviews. I’d make sure graph fundamentals are really clean and that you can implement heaps without getting shaky, because they asked me heap stuff in both rounds.
Company culture
From my side, it lined up with what people usually say about Google. The culture seemed pretty good, but it also feels like one of those places where it probably depends a lot on the team.
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