Google India L3 || Interview Experience || Offer Accepted
Summary
I completed four interview rounds for a Google Software Engineer L3 position, solved all technical questions, and received an offer after the hiring committee.
Full Experience
Hey Everyone, Im sharing my recent Google Software Engineer L3 interview experience. The LeetCode Discuss section helped me a lot in my prep and its time for me to give back to the community.
There were total 4 Interviews.
- Virtual Technical round
- Virtual googliness round
- Onsite Technical round
- Onsite Technical round
Virtual Technical Round Question: A variation of https://leetcode.com/problems/maximum-good-subarray-sum in which we have to return any pair of indices {i, j} rather than the max sum.
Virtual Googliness Round Simple behavioural and hypothetical questions.
Onsite Technical Rounds Both the rounds were on the same day, back to back in Google's office. Two different interviewers and two different questions.
Question1: It was a story wrapped question but the crux of the questions was, Given a string consisting of only 2 letters 'a' and 'b' such that the number of 'a' and number of 'b' is even in the string. You can make at most 2 cuts in the string and divide the sub-strings amongst Alice and Bob in such a way that the number of 'a' Alice has == number of 'a' bob has and number of 'b' Alice has == number of 'b' bob has. Return the index or indices of the cut(s).
Question2: Another story wrapped question but the crux was, Given an array of integers in one operation you will select any element from the array and remove it from the array then you have to tell that is it possible to divide that new array into two subarrays such that the sum of the subarrays is equal (after doing the operation).
I was able to solve every question and was give a positive verdict in each round. (Was told to work on my time management as a feedback) After completing all the rounds my recruiter called me in 2 days to tell me that I have cleared the interviews and my profile is being sent for team-matching stage, got a team match in 2 business days, had a good talk with the manager. Then came the Hiring Committee, in which my packet was sent to the HC, after 3 days recruiter called for Compensation discussion and on the same day got the offer.
If anybody needs some tips on how I did it, I would just say, to believe in yourself because any day your destiny can change and you would want to be ready to witness it. I have had 20 rejections from Google (never went even till OA or interview), never thought it would come to me on a random wednesday, but it did and I was (hopefully) ready. So whatever you believe in, God, destiny, fate make sure to believe in yourself too. Thanks!
Interview Questions (3)
Maximum Good Subarray Pair Indices
Given an array, find any pair of indices {i, j} such that the subarray from i to j (inclusive) has the maximum good subarray sum as defined in the LeetCode problem "Maximum Good Subarray Sum". Instead of returning the sum, return the indices i and j.
Equal Split of a/b String with Two Cuts
Given a string consisting only of the characters 'a' and 'b' where the total count of 'a' and the total count of 'b' are both even, you may make at most two cuts to divide the string into substrings that are distributed between Alice and Bob. The distribution must satisfy that Alice and Bob each receive the same number of 'a' characters and the same number of 'b' characters. Return the index or indices of the cut(s) that achieve this balance.
Array Split After Removing One Element
Given an array of integers, you may perform a single operation where you select any element and remove it from the array. After this removal, determine whether it is possible to partition the remaining array into two subarrays whose sums are equal.
Preparation Tips
I prepared using LeetCode Discuss and practiced similar problems to build problem-solving skills.