The Google Coding Interview

What are people saying about Google's Interview

PROS

There a huge diversity of work ranging from defending independent journalism worldwide (Google Project Shield) to crisis response during disasters (see Maps during Hurricane Sandy or Tsunamis), to the best machine learning experts and projects in the world, to more mundane revenue-driving projects in advertising, there’s really something for everybody.
Work life balance can be what you want it to be on most teams. (Some teams are in more competitive sectors and require more crazy hours all the time – but very few of them). If you do what’s expected, you’ll be fine at least for a handful of years. Working a roughly 40 hour work week is possible, and many people do it.

CONS

It is becoming larger, and with it comes growing pains: bureaucracy, slow to respond to market threats, bloated teams, cross-divisional tension
Chaotic; cancelled products and staffing changes on teams
Infrastructure is somewhat unique and may not be transferable to other companies
Bureaucracy has been over the top for a while now. The number of hoops you need to jump through to release a new project is crazy. I guess it makes sense for such a large company, but still not a great situation to be in.

What Googlers have to say about interviewing?

“You should know at least one programming language really well, preferably C++, Java, Python, Go, or C. You will be expected to know APIs, Object Orientated Design and Programming, how to test your code, as well as come up with corner cases and edge cases for code. Note that we focus on conceptual understanding rather than memorization.”

“Consider if a problem can be applied with graph algorithms like distance, search, connectivity, cycle-detection, etc. There are three basic ways to represent a graph in memory (objects and pointers, matrix, and adjacency list) — familiarize yourself with each representation and its pros and cons.”

“After your interviews are done, independent hiring committees made up of Googlers at various levels of the company review your candidate packet, which includes your interview feedback and scores, your resume, references, and any work samples you submitted. Hiring committees help make sure we’re holding true to our hiring standards as we grow.”

“In most organizations, you join and still have to prove yourself. At Google, we’ve all gone through the same hiring process and know we can trust in each other and new team members from day one. Welcome aboard.”

How to: Prepare for a Google Engineering Interview

What are people saying about the interview?

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