Previous post : https://www.teamblind.com/post/Google-Level-targeting-Interview-how-to-prepare-LAmtuoJZ In short, I failed to target the L5 bar, and I'm going to taking "one more level target interview for L4". The coding interview went like this: The interviewer gave me a question. (it's difficulty was LC Medium-Hard) I gave a bug-free complete code from the beginning within ~25 min. The interviewer asked me to extend my code to handle all bizarre edge cases. There were really difficult edge cases that requires the implementation to be significantly changed. (this was at LC Hard level) I was able to write a bug-free complete code for that within the time frame. My code was very idiomatic and clean, and the complexity was optimal. The recruiter said : "To be considered as Google L5 target, in the feedback of technical interviews, it's unacceptable to see any ambivalent phrase like 'the candidate was not able to give perfect answer from the beginning, but the candidate was eventually capable of handling all cases'. Only feedback something like 'The candidate did everything perfect before my engagement so there is nothing to say' would be acceptable" Come on, I have a lot of Google L4/L5 friends. I regularly conduct mock technical interviews with them. I think more than half of L5 employee can't make this bar if they re-interview. If I were to give coding questions as interviewer, I can come up with many subtle problems that they are very unlikely to bring up a perfect solution from the beginning. (How do I know? Because I watched it) So what can I do? I'm not an US citizen, my country has shitty tech infrastructure, there is no other top-tier tech company here other than Google, so I have no choice. TL;DR 1. Don't believe many coding interview tips that can be found in the internet something like "interviewers want to see your way of thinking, optimal solution itself is not very important". No, never. They are all bullshitting. 2. The interview bar is unlikely absolute evaluation, there is a matter of demand and supply #software #swe #google
Based on your description, you didn’t solve the problem at all. The interviewer solved it for you, and you just wrote the code. That’s the description of an L3 interview performance. The interviewer did judge you based on your thought process, and wasn’t impressed.
Hello, Google employee. You'd think I didn't ask any clarifying question from the beginning and rushed into coding, but it's actually not. I was just not able to think of all possible subtle edge cases completely at the first sight for this problem. You'd probably think all L4 Google employee would be able to do this for every LC medium-hard coding question, but what I've seen from mock interviews with them is pretty different.
Okay, then you solved the problem somewhat but rushed into coding without considering enough factors. If the problem is legitimately medium or hard and you haven’t seen it before, then there’s simply no way you can finish it in 20 - 25 minutes unless you skipped important steps of the problem-solving process. Did you anticipate all possible edge cases and discuss how to handle them? Did you propose multiple possible solutions, analyze the complexity of each, and compare the pros and cons? Of course you didn’t - if you took the time to talk through these aspects of the problem, you couldn’t possibly have finished writing code in the first 20 minutes unless it was a really easy problem. For a problem of sufficient difficulty, you wouldn’t even start to write code in that time. Maybe you learned some habits from other company’s interviews (e.g. Meta) that focused on speed over quality of the thought process, but that’s the opposite of what Google’s culture selects for and what Google interviewers look for.
You sound annoying. To put it bluntly - L5 interviews are not unrealistically impossible and plenty of people pass with even fewer YOE than you. Interviewers aren’t just trying to fail every candidate for any reason - they are just trying to make sure the candidate demonstrates the things they are looking for. Maybe you just have a poor self-assessment of your actual performance? Sure it’s also possible you got unlucky or whatever, but from your attitude it just looks like you’re looking for something to blame. Maybe introspect a bit more and see if it really is the case that you did as well as you thought you did. No google interviewer expects the candidate to give a perfect answer from the beginning, so it must be some other reason
I didn't say how do I feel about what my performance was, I just wrote what happened in the interview. I missed some edge cases, so didn't consider them in writing the initial implementation. The interviewer guided me and I took them into account to write another implementation. That's all. If we assume that kind of edge cases aren't allowed, then the problem will be considered as LC medium. If we have to take into account all edge cases, the problem is definitely LC hard. I didn't say interviewers aren't just trying to fail every candidate. I just said that my interviewer wrote something like "the candidate was initially unable to consider all edge cases initially, but he did after being guided". This is what the recruiter at your employer told me, not my own guess. And hiring bars don't have to be the same for the same company. It may depends on region, available headcount, or individual interviewer. Many people passing L5 interview bars with <=5 YOE? It can be possible, but my acquaintances who work at Google (at my region) have never seen that.
Personal Finance
Yesterday
739
How much of your household take-home pay goes to the mortgage?
Working Parents
Yesterday
945
What do you think is wrong with a kid who got rejected by 9 colleges?
Tech Industry
Yesterday
2831
Quitting this Slave life
India
Yesterday
999
Modi is a legend, will be remembered for centuries to come
Tech Industry
Yesterday
2254
The end of Backdoor Roth?!
Interview thing is broken every where.. it carries equal luck factor along with hard work