Google | L4 | - Google | Interview Experiences

Summary

I interviewed for an L4 position at Google, completing a phone screening and four onsite rounds over a few months. I felt I performed strongly in several technical and behavioral rounds and am currently awaiting the final outcome.

Full Experience

I have 4.2 years of experience in a product-based company. I received a message on LinkedIn from a Google recruiter, and as I was actively looking for opportunities, I scheduled my phone screening round for the following week.

Nov 1st week: Phone Screening Round

I don't remember the exact question, but it was an array question similar to this LeetCode Discuss post. I was able to solve the question with an optimal solution, and later received positive feedback from HR.

After this, there was a break for a soft team alignment. For those unfamiliar, this is a process where my candidature was circulated throughout Google to see if any Hiring Manager was interested in my profile. This is a one-way process; at least one HM needs to show interest for the onsite rounds to be scheduled. After one and a half months, I received a mail to schedule the onsite rounds. Trust me, there were times I almost gave up on Google! A week after receiving the mail, I scheduled my onsite rounds.

Dec End: Round 1

The question was: You are given an input string, for example add(5, mul(2, pow(5,2))), and you have to evaluate it. This was just a plain string with operators such as add (addition), mul (multiplication), pow (power), sub (subtraction), and div (division). I was able to come up with an approach, but could only code half of the solution due to time constraints. The feedback was not great for this round.

Dec end: Round 2

The question involved creating two functions:

InsertRange(int start, int end): This function takes two integer arguments, start and end, to create intervals where start is inclusive and end is exclusive.
Query(int point): This function takes an integer as input and returns a boolean, indicating if the particular point is present in any of the created intervals.

Example:

Insert: [2, 3), [2, 5), [9, 13). The final merged intervals should be {[2,5), [9, 13)}.
Query: 0 should return false, 2 should return true, 10 should return true.

I was able to solve and code the solution within time, including follow-up questions. I'm guessing I got a Strong Hire for this one.

Jan start 2025: G&L round

This round consisted of general behavioral questions. I'm guessing I received a Hire or Strong Hire for this round.

Jan start 2025: Round 3 (Rescheduled)

This was a Dynamic Programming question, specifically finding the length of the longest increasing subsequence but with a tweak. I was able to solve and code the solution within time and also handled the follow-up question. I'm guessing a Strong Hire for this as well.

I hope this post helps others. Thanks and All the best!

Interview Questions (2)

Evaluate Arithmetic Expression String

Data Structures & Algorithms

Given an input string, for example add(5, mul(2, pow(5,2))), you have to evaluate the string. This is just a plain string. The available operators are:

add: addition
mul: multiplication
pow: power
sub: subtraction
div: division

Interval Management System

Data Structures & Algorithms

Create two functions:

InsertRange(int start, int end): This function takes two integer arguments, start and end. When called, it should create or merge intervals such that start is inclusive and end is exclusive.
Query(int point): This function takes an integer as input and returns a boolean, indicating whether the given point is present within any of the currently stored intervals.

Example:

Insert operations:

InsertRange(2, 3)
InsertRange(2, 5)
InsertRange(9, 13)

The final merged intervals should be {[2,5), [9, 13)}.

Query operations:

Query(0) should return false
Query(2) should return true
Query(10) should return true

Google | L4 | Interview Experience