Google L5 screening : Reject

I recently got a call directly from a recruiter at Google since I had interviewed with them in the past (and declined an offer back then).

This was a screening stage with:

1 DSA round 1 Googliness round Followed by onsite rounds (if cleared)

Round 1: DSA

Problem:

A user has a faulty keyboard where some keys get stuck, causing characters to repeat more than intended.

Given a dictionary of valid words, return all possible words the user intended to type.

Approach:

Built a Trie from the dictionary Used backtracking to explore valid matches by collapsing repeated characters

The idea was:

Treat repeated characters as a flexible match (e.g., "heeellooo" → "hello") Traverse the Trie while deciding whether to: Consume multiple same chars Or move forward

Verdict: Rejected

Reason:

I solved the main problem But the interviewer wanted to go deeper with follow-ups Unfortunately, we ran out of time before that

Solving the base problem is not enough — always leave time for follow-ups

Round 2: Googliness

Question:

Give an instance of self-improvement

I talked about a real example from my experience where I: Identified a gap Took structured steps to improve Measured the impact

Verdict: Hire

Overall: Rejected