Google SWE Infra Phone Screen Experience (USA) 2026
Summary
I had two rounds for my Google phone screen - one behavioral and one coding. The coding round involved validating sequences of machine processes for dependency cycles.
Full Experience
Hi! Just want to share my Google Phone Screen experience with anybody in the process, since I've had immense help from Leetcode discuss section. I had 2 rounds.
Round 1 (45 minutes): Googlyness
This was behavioral. Some of the questions I was asked were around:
1. how would you handle conflicts
2. how would you manage multiple projects at the same time?
3. Follow up to previous: when you are managing multiple things, how do you scope them out? How do you manage scoping out time, approvals time, and development time?
3. have you gone out of your way to help someone else outside of your team?
Round 2 (45 minutes): Coding round
I was actually asked not to write perfect code, and pseudocode also would do just fine. Majorly, I was asked to explain the solution and the approach.
Question: There is a sequence of machines processes, like [A, B, C], [D, E, F], such that C depends on B depends on A, and separately F depends on E depends on D. the task was to say it the sequnces are valid or not.
I assumed it to be a cycle detection problem by creating a dependecy dict. I used DFS to explain my cycle-detection algorithm. Surprisingly this entire round was only 15~ minute long, followed by ~20 minutes of real-life API design discussion, and the interview ended a couple minutes earlier than 45 minutes.
I'm not sure how good or bad everything went, or if my assumptions were correct...I guess I'll find out LOL.
Interview Questions (1)
Validate Process Sequences for Dependency Cycles
You are given sequences of machine processes such as [A, B, C], [D, E, F] where dependencies exist in order (C depends on B which depends on A). Determine whether all sequences represent valid dependency chains without cycles.