Google STEP Internship Interview Experience (India, 2024)

Round 1: HR Telephonic Screening

This was a short and friendly HR discussion.

Questions Asked:

• Brief self-introduction
• LeetCode progress (number of problems solved, consistency)
• Preparation strategy (Striver’s Sheet)
• Academics: CGPA, backlogs
• Projects (already included in my introduction)

Outcome:

✅ Cleared

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Round 2: Technical Interview – 1

The interviewer was very calm and supportive. Instead of directly stating the problem, she explained it using a real-life story.

Problem Theme:

Sliding Window / Two Pointers

Problem Links:

• Base Problem: https://leetcode.com/problems/max-consecutive-ones/
• Follow-up: https://leetcode.com/problems/max-consecutive-ones-iii/

How the Interview Went:

• She described a beach seating scenario:

  • Some seats are already occupied.
  • Find the maximum number of friends who can sit together.

• Follow-up: You’re okay with at most k people sitting in between.

Discussion Highlights:

• Asked: “What data structure or approach comes to your mind?”

• We discussed:

  • Brute force approach
  • Optimized sliding window solution

• I clearly explained:

  • Time complexity
  • Space complexity
  • Edge cases (all 1s, all 0s, k = 0, k >= number of zeros)

• She also asked about:

  • Choice of data structure
  • Choice of data type, and why it is sufficient

After coding the base solution, she immediately moved to the follow-up, which I was able to implement correctly.

Outcome:

✅ Cleared

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Round 3: Technical Interview – 2

This round focused more on recursion, design thinking, and clean code structure.

Problem Type:

• File–Folder structure

• Required:

  • Recursive traversal
  • Designing a class-based structure
  • Clear abstraction

Discussion Highlights:

• Designed a class to represent files and folders

• Used recursion for traversal

• Explained:

  • Time complexity
  • Base cases and edge cases
  • Why the chosen structure fits the problem

• Interviewer appreciated:

  • Clarity of thought
  • Correct handling of edge cases
  • Step-by-step explanation

Outcome:

✅ Interview completed successfully

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Final Result

After all rounds, I did not receive a positive confirmation from HR, and unfortunately, the final outcome was not in my favor.

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Key Takeaways

• Referrals help, but preparation matters more

• Sliding Window & Recursion are must-know topics

• Interviewers value:

  • Clear discussion of time and space complexity
  • Proper handling of edge cases
  • Correct data structure and data type choices
  • Ability to move from brute force → optimized

• Even after good interviews, results may vary — don’t get discouraged

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Final Thoughts

This experience helped me understand that:

• Google interviews are concept-driven
• Problems are often story-based
• Explaining why you choose an approach matters as much as coding it

Hope this helps someone preparing for Google STEP / Associate Software Developer interviews. All the best 🚀

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Disclaimer:

This post is based solely on my personal interview experience from 2024. The problems mentioned are discussed at a high level and reference publicly available questions. No confidential, proprietary, or internal information is shared. Interview experiences may vary depending on role, team, interviewer, and time.