Google (August 2026) | Virtual |

Screening round :

Problem Statement:

Rat's Safest Path: You are given an N × N grid where each cell is either land(1) or water (0). A rat starts at a given source cell (sx, sy) and must reach a target cell (tx, ty) by moving one step at a time in the four cardinal directions (up, down, left, right). A cat is located at cell (cx, cy) and remains stationary. The safety of a path is defined as the minimum Manhattan distance from the cat among all cells visited on that path. Your task is to find a valid path from the source to the target that maximizes this safety value. Return the maximum possible safety value. If no valid path exists, return -1. The source, target, and cat positions are valid grid coordinates. The rat may move only to adjacent open cells (up, down, left, right). Followup:

• how will you deal if there are multiple cats.

Round 2:

googliness :

• What is the most challenging project you’ve worked on? Follow up: If you will see similar problem in future how will you approach it now?
• Describe a positive leadership or managerial style you liked from one of your previous managers. How did it influence your work style?
• Tell me about a time you advocated for yourself or someone on your team.
• any project that you have lead and you have proposed it and how you worked on it.
• what are new learnings that you will implement in yourself, so that you perform better in future.