Interviewing at Google: My Experience! 💻
Tags: career, google, intern, interview
Published: 2022-10-13 17:13:28

**Job Description**
> As per mentioned in the mail** 

**Role: Software Engineer | Type: Winter Internship - January 2023 | Duration: 6 months |  Location: Hyderabad or Bangalore**


### 1️⃣ **How I got this opportunity?**
I saw this opportunity opening on LinkedIn for 2023 graduates, I asked for a referral before applying, and fortunately got a referral. After like 20 days of applying, I got an email asking for confirmation so they could set up interviews with me.

### 2️⃣ **Summary of the Interviews:**

⭕ **Round 1  (45 Mins):**
_This interview got rescheduled and it happened after my 2nd Interview._
The interview began with a brief introduction. The question was Leetcode Hard+ (DP On Trees). I took some time to understand the problem, and I started with the basic Brute Force, and the interviewer asked me to code that only. I did code the solution, but it was an exponential time complexity, and I informed the interviewer of the optimal solution but could not code it due to a lack of time (due to an internet issue, we wasted some time rejoining).

⭕ **Round 2  (45 Mins):**
It was a Graph Leetcode Medium (but with a heck of a lot of edge cases). I immediately came up with an algorithm, but as I began to explain it, I realized that it was not the correct approach. After realizing this, I correctly built the solution using the hints the interviewer provided (he was very helpful in pointing me toward the solution). I initially struggled, but I eventually wrote the code, and the interviewer was satisfied. After that, we spoke about a lot of edge cases, and I had a great time in this round. I must say, he was an amazing interviewer.


### 3️⃣ **What Resources did I followed for my Preparation?**
- [Blog: google-interview-preparation](https://medium.com/nerd-for-tech/googles-interview-preparation-routine-be6647910a5b)
- [Interview Bit](https://www.interviewbit.com/search/?q=Google)
- [Most Popular Problems for Google (last 6 months)](https://github.com/yashikajotwani12/DataStructures_Algorithms/blob/master/README.md#most-popular-problems-for-google-last-6-months)
- [Dynamic Programming](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgUwDviBIf0qUlt5H_kiKYaNSqJ81PMMY)
- [Graph](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgUwDviBIf0oE3gA41TKO2H5bHpPd7fzn)
- [Imp Questions](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kBGyRsSdbGDu7DzjQcC-UkZjZERdrP8-_QyVGXHSrB8/edit#gid=0)
- [Google Leetcode Premium(All Google Problems asked in 2021)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1au4OcvQUPN8z-DK-7JBcPLb907OTP5-bxN8arH2vw6Y/edit)



### 4️⃣ **What Went Well :**
- I felt fairly confident going into both rounds (thanks to Mock Interviews).
- I was able to take up hints.
- I did took it as a discussion and explained everything outloud.
- I asked sufficient questions where I thought to get clearer with the problem.
- As the actual interviews take place on Google Docs (a bit different than the docs we use), I have practiced coding some amount of the questions on it.

### 5️⃣ **What Didn't Go Well and Why:**
- I didn't do a good job of covering edge cases.
- I believe my code might have been written lot better.
- I should have looked at more Dynamic Programming problems (Dp on trees, 3D Dp etc). 



### 6️⃣ **Here are some pointers that were useful to me:**
- I've used LeetCode a lot before, so I didn't need to check into fundamental problems at the last minute.
- I practised writing code using correct naming conventions and driver functions in Google Docs.
- I did sufficient mock interviews.
- I spoke with a few people who had previously done Google interviews.
- I read numerous blogs.
- I didn't complete questions for all DSA Topics, but I did complete one with Google Tagged Questions and Topics and concentrated on a specific group of resources.

### 7️⃣ **These are some Google Code Review Guidelines:**
- The interactions of various pieces of your code should make sense.
- You should write the code as per your discussion and what you intended.
- You should pick good names for everything.
- The code you write should be testable.
- You should think of various test cases.
- You should write comments in understandable English.


### 8️⃣ **Result:**
  _Rejected_


### 9️⃣ **How I felt?**
It was a wonderful experience. The interviewers were friendly and made the entire process quite pleasant, and I learned what I needed to improve on.
Additionally, getting this interview chance is a big personal achievement for me. I will always be thankful to the individual who referred me and the others who helped me and took my mock interviews.



### 🔟 **You can reach me at:**
🌼 [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yashika-jothwani-03a0061b7/) 
🌼 [GitHub](https://github.com/yashikajotwani12)
🌼 [Twitter](https://twitter.com/yashika_jotwani)
🌼 [Leetcode](https://leetcode.com/yashikajotwani/)