Google - L3(USA) Early career Interview questions
Summary
I recently went through the L3 early career interview process at Google in the USA, which comprised a phone screen and a virtual onsite, covering coding, system design, and behavioral aspects.
Full Experience
Phone Screen
My phone screen consisted of one main coding problem with two follow-ups. The primary task was to remove duplicate elements from array A that were present in array B.
Virtual Onsite
G&L (Googliness & Leadership)
This round was entirely behavioral, focusing on my past experiences related to teamwork, leadership, and problem-solving within a team context. I shared stories about collaborating with diverse workstyles, going the extra mile to assist others, advocating for teammates, influencing colleagues positively, and managing increased responsibilities.
Technical 1
The first technical round had two problems. The initial one was a quick warm-up to count odd numbers in an array. The main challenge was to design a waitlist system for a restaurant, handling groups joining and leaving, and seating the first fitting group for a given table size.
Technical 2
In this technical round, I was presented with a problem about forming teams from a large group of people. Each team needed 5 specific roles, and people had preferences for these roles. The objective was to maximize the number of people assigned to their preferred roles.
Technical 3
The final technical round involved finding the shortest distance in a matrix. The matrix contained different elements: 'S' for start, 'F' for finish, '0' for passable cells, '1' for blockages. A unique aspect was that capital letters in cells acted as 'portals', allowing direct jumps to any other cell with the same letter. I also had a follow-up to return the actual path.
Interview Questions (10)
Given two arrays A and B, remove all elements from A that are also present in B. Elements in A can have duplicates. First, consider how to maintain the original order of elements from A in the result, and then how to return them in reverse order.
Tell me about a time when you had to work with team members with different workstyles.
Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond to help someone.
Tell me about a time when you advocated for a team mate to help them fit in at work.
Tell me about a time changed a opinion of colleague from negative to positive.
Tell me about a time you took more responsibilities how that impact on your assigned tasks.
Given an array, find the number of odd numbers present in it.
Design a waitlist system for restaurant management. Groups of people can join and leave the waitlist at any time. The restaurant should serve the first group that fits a given table size (table size passed as a parameter).
Given a large group of people, form teams. Each team has 5 specific roles (A, B, C, D, E). Each person has a preference (not a strict requirement) for a role they want to perform. The goal is to form teams such that as many people as possible are assigned to their preferred roles.
Given a matrix where cells can have values [S, F, 0, 1, (any capital letter)]. 'S' is the start, 'F' is the finish, '0' means a passable cell, '1' means a blockage. If a cell contains a capital letter, you can directly teleport to any other cell containing the same capital letter. Find the shortest distance to go from 'S' to 'F', and also return the actual shortest path.