Google | L4 | Phone Screen | June 2022
Summary
I recently completed a Google L4 phone screen where I encountered a challenging variation of the Longest String Chain problem, specifically requiring the chain to begin with a single-character word.
Full Experience
I had my phone screen interview for an L4 Software Engineer role at Google in June 2022. The session was fairly standard, starting with introductions and a brief chat about my background. The main part of the interview focused on a coding problem. The question presented was a clear variation of the 'Longest String Chain' problem found on LeetCode. The core difference was an explicit constraint: the string chain had to always start with a single-character string. For example, a valid chain would progress like 'a' -> 'ab' -> 'abc'. I focused on understanding this specific modification and how it would influence the dynamic programming approach typically used for the original problem.