Software Engineer Interviewing At Google
I was recently surprised with a new e-mail in my inbox - "Hello from Google!" I never expected them to respond, but 6 months ago I sent them my resume. I applied on their careers website but didn't hear anything and I ended up getting a local job at dSPACE. Things are going well but I decided I want to try and move out west, closer to silicon valley. I feel like this is a special time in history for software engineering and I want to be a part of it, so I updated my resume with the last 6 months of experience and applied again to Google and several other companies out there.
I was actually hoping to get a response from SpaceX, because I think it would be so cool to work on software that is going to outer space, and my background in physics would lend itself well to rocket controls and that kind of thing. But I was not disappointed when, 4 days after I applied, I got a response from Google requesting a phone interview. I was so excited, because working at Google has been one of my dreams for a long time, but my work history is not yet full of great software accolades so I pretty much thought it was hopeless, at least for now.
So I went through the first phone interview, which was non-technical. They just wanted to get a feel for my background and personality, and what I might like to work on at Google. I found that really tough to answer because there are so many things I would love to work on, but I said the autonomous vehicle. I thought everything went well, and they explained that the whole interview process takes 8-10 weeks, including multiple phone interviews and an on-site gauntlet of interviews, and that I should hear back in the next 1-3 business days regarding their decision to move forward, so I waited but on the 4th business day I didn't hear anything so I thought it was over. I sent a pitiful "status request" e-mail to the HR representative and figured the worst, but they replied right away and in fact I did move on to the next round, which is a technical phone interview.
This is not like any technical phone interview I did in the past. When I interviewed at Green Hills it went like this - I sent them my resume and within the span of 5 days they had made initial contact with me, conducted two phone interviews and scheduled me to fly out to Santa Barbara. With Google, we scheduled the technical phone interview sometime 2-3 weeks from now. But believe it or not I'm thankful that I have so much time to prepare, because they told me about their technical screening and it's pretty daunting! It's like I have to recall everything I learned in computer science courses in college. It makes some people upset because it's the kind of stuff that you don't use every day (okay that's being generous, it's stuff you never have to know in your "regular" software job) but the types of problems Google engineers are solving are much more rich and complex than your average company, so I give them the benefit of the doubt and say they probably know what they're doing. Plus, even though I don't know all the stuff off the top of my head, it's the kind of stuff that if you knew it well at one point in your life, it should be easy to brush up on in the span of 2 weeks.
So I'm spending the next two weeks solving code puzzles at project euler and reviewing all my old data structure and algorithm implementations, like my AVL-balanced binary search tree and merge sort routine. I'm preparing myself for all kinds of questions that can span any domain from operating systems to data structures and graphs to discrete math and probability. It's apparently not enough just to know theoretically how any of the things work, you have to be able to implement it. Despite being nervous I am incredibly motivated to do well in this interview. It's like I finally get a chance to show Google what I'm made of, and I just hope it's what they're looking for. It's not like it's my only chance though, because from what I read a lot of current Google engineers had to interview several times before they got an offer.
Anyways, that's where I'm at in the process. I'll post more updates as things move (glacially) along. I figured this might be an interesting account for other software engineers hoping to get a job at Google. I know I risk embarrassment because statistically speaking I probably won't get an offer, but the point is to take you through the process with me. Wish me luck!
I was actually hoping to get a response from SpaceX, because I think it would be so cool to work on software that is going to outer space, and my background in physics would lend itself well to rocket controls and that kind of thing. But I was not disappointed when, 4 days after I applied, I got a response from Google requesting a phone interview. I was so excited, because working at Google has been one of my dreams for a long time, but my work history is not yet full of great software accolades so I pretty much thought it was hopeless, at least for now.
So I went through the first phone interview, which was non-technical. They just wanted to get a feel for my background and personality, and what I might like to work on at Google. I found that really tough to answer because there are so many things I would love to work on, but I said the autonomous vehicle. I thought everything went well, and they explained that the whole interview process takes 8-10 weeks, including multiple phone interviews and an on-site gauntlet of interviews, and that I should hear back in the next 1-3 business days regarding their decision to move forward, so I waited but on the 4th business day I didn't hear anything so I thought it was over. I sent a pitiful "status request" e-mail to the HR representative and figured the worst, but they replied right away and in fact I did move on to the next round, which is a technical phone interview.
This is not like any technical phone interview I did in the past. When I interviewed at Green Hills it went like this - I sent them my resume and within the span of 5 days they had made initial contact with me, conducted two phone interviews and scheduled me to fly out to Santa Barbara. With Google, we scheduled the technical phone interview sometime 2-3 weeks from now. But believe it or not I'm thankful that I have so much time to prepare, because they told me about their technical screening and it's pretty daunting! It's like I have to recall everything I learned in computer science courses in college. It makes some people upset because it's the kind of stuff that you don't use every day (okay that's being generous, it's stuff you never have to know in your "regular" software job) but the types of problems Google engineers are solving are much more rich and complex than your average company, so I give them the benefit of the doubt and say they probably know what they're doing. Plus, even though I don't know all the stuff off the top of my head, it's the kind of stuff that if you knew it well at one point in your life, it should be easy to brush up on in the span of 2 weeks.
So I'm spending the next two weeks solving code puzzles at project euler and reviewing all my old data structure and algorithm implementations, like my AVL-balanced binary search tree and merge sort routine. I'm preparing myself for all kinds of questions that can span any domain from operating systems to data structures and graphs to discrete math and probability. It's apparently not enough just to know theoretically how any of the things work, you have to be able to implement it. Despite being nervous I am incredibly motivated to do well in this interview. It's like I finally get a chance to show Google what I'm made of, and I just hope it's what they're looking for. It's not like it's my only chance though, because from what I read a lot of current Google engineers had to interview several times before they got an offer.
Anyways, that's where I'm at in the process. I'll post more updates as things move (glacially) along. I figured this might be an interesting account for other software engineers hoping to get a job at Google. I know I risk embarrassment because statistically speaking I probably won't get an offer, but the point is to take you through the process with me. Wish me luck!
