Google Interview Experience : from a non CP, non CS guy ?

Sayan Mondal — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 11:56:56 +0000

My Google Interview Experience - from non CP, non CS guy !

Sayan Mondal

My Background

I decided to pen down my experience, since my background and story are quite different.
Unlike most Googlers, I have never done CP in my life.
I always had a passion for tech, and I dove deep into research (published a few papers) and backend development in my college days
(worked at various early-age startups). I mostly did around 700 LC questions while preparing for MSFT in my pre-final year,
and around 350ish in 1.5 months while preparing for Google. LC Profile - https://leetcode.com/u/el_luchador/.

Interview Experience

One day, I was sitting depressed for various personal reasons, and I got reached out by a recruiter for an opportunity at Google.
I wanted a new start, so I said yes, and we had a discussion on my tech background and the process began.

R1:

It was a very twisted question, and I panicked, but I somehow solved it using very fancy sparse tables.
However, later on, I realized it had a simpler binary search solution. It was averagish ig.

From whatever I read online from LC posts (not sure if its true),
I concluded I needed to have at least one very strong round to stand a chance, so prepared harder and hoped for the best.

R2:

It was based on tries and dfs, and I nailed it. We had some time left even after solving the questions.

R3:

It was a puzzle based on multisets and randomness. I did everything.

R4:

Behavioural Round, mostly focused on diversity and inclusion, and all the courses I did on D&E came in handy in this round.

R5:

Team matching: I explained in detail my projects in my previous company, how I helped improve products,
the impact I had, POCs I did, my winning hacks, etc. It was really good technical discussion.

That's it; I cleared the interviews. My advice to anyone preparing is to do hard questions;
don't keep minnow bashing LC Mids for stat padding; they won't help you much; push yourself.
I followed the same approach; of the 300 questions I practiced while preparing for Google, 100 were hard.

Forem: Sayan Mondal

Google Interview Experience : from a non CP, non CS guy ?

My Google Interview Experience - from non CP, non CS guy !

My Background

Interview Experience

R1:

R2:

R3:

R4:

R5: