Google Early Career Phone Round
Summary
I participated in a 45-minute technical screening round for the Google Early Career program, focusing on collaborative problem-solving and in-depth discussion of approaches before coding. I implemented a restaurant waitlist management system but realized post-interview that a more optimal O(1) solution was possible.
Full Experience
Recently, I had a screening round for the Google Early Career program. The format was straightforward: a 45-minute technical interview conducted over Google Meet, where I collaborated with the interviewer via a shared document to implement a solution.
One important learning from my past interviews was not to jump into coding immediately. This time, I spent a solid 20 minutes discussing multiple approaches, validating edge cases, and aligning expectations with the interviewer before writing any code. That initial discussion helped establish a shared understanding of the problem and potential solutions.
What Went Well
- Identified and walked through edge cases thoroughly.
- Performed dry runs to validate the logic.
- Confirmed method contracts with the interviewer—for example, agreeing to return
-1when no suitable party was found.
What I Learned
- Clarify expectations early. I missed the opportunity to ask whether returning the next nearest table size was acceptable if an exact match wasn't found. Understanding such nuances can significantly influence the design of your solution.
Interview Questions (1)
You're working at a restaurant with a single waitlist for party assignments. You need to implement the following operations:
AddWaitlist(partySize): Adds a party to the waitlist.RemoveWaitlist(partySize): Removes a party from the waitlist.FindParty(numSeats): Returns the earliest party from the waitlist whose size fits the given number of seats. Returns-1if no suitable party is found.