Updated by Google candidates
Staff Software Engineer Interview Experience
The system design wasn’t generic. It was built around the team’s actual work: an AI agent that lets enterprise users search and query their data and documents.
Interview process
I went through four rounds for an L6 software engineer role: a coding round, a behavioral with a director, and then two L6 system design interviews. My last round wrapped at the end of September in Mountain View, and I ended up rejected. The strangest part of the loop was that both design interviews reused the same AI agent prompt. Those design rounds were not generic at all. They were tightly tied to a data platform team's AI agent initiative.
- Technical interview
- Other
Interview rounds
3 questions across 4 roundsTechnical interview (1)
1 questionOverview
They opened with a straight coding round, and it felt like even getting to a solution did not necessarily make me safe.
Question types asked
Specific questions asked
Find how many lakes are within an ocean.
I did produce a solution to the lakes-within-an-ocean problem, but I still felt like this round was judged really hard. I came away feeling like the interviewer failed me anyway, and that ended up mattering more than how the rest of the loop went.
Other
Overview
The second round was a behavioral with a director, and I did not see anything especially unusual there compared with the rest of the loop.
Question types asked
Technical interview (2)
1 questionOverview
The first L6 system design round was very specific to a data platform team's AI agent work, not a generic system design prompt.
Question types asked
Specific questions asked
I approached it as building an enterprise AI agent that can search and query across databases and documents. What stood out to me is that this was not a generic design question at all. It was tightly tied to the actual AI agent search space the team cares about.
Technical interview (3)
1 questionOverview
The last L6 system design round surprisingly reused the same prompt, but it felt like they were probing a different slice of the problem.
Question types asked
Specific questions asked
How would you build an AI agent for enterprise users to search and query across their databases and documents?
They gave me the same AI agent prompt again, but this interviewer pushed a different angle of the problem. So I had to discuss the same enterprise search and query assistant again, just through a different lens than the first design round.
Interview tips
I would put a lot of prep time into coding because this loop felt like one miss there can sink everything else. The coding problem I saw was a graph or grid style question about counting lakes within an ocean, so I would not just do random easy LeetCode and call it a day. I would also practice a very team-specific AI agent design for enterprise users who need to search and query across databases and documents. If your system design prep is too generic, this kind of loop can catch you off guard.
Company culture
It did not feel like they were trying to give broad, generic interview prompts. Even when they reused the same system design question, it seemed intentional in the sense that each interviewer was testing a different angle of the same problem. At the same time, I left with the feeling that one interviewer's personal read can outweigh the fact that you got to a solution, and that rubbed me the wrong way.
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