I had a full interview loop at #google yesterday for a Staff software engineer position. Pretty sure I bombed one of the system design interviews but did very well on all the others (another system design, 2 coding, and 1 googlyness). What are the odds that I get through hiring committee? Will I get down levelled? Additional stuff: I have a strong referral and very good resume (large scope at MS and 5 years at FB before MS).
@OP what type of questions did you get for your system design?
One was a very vague question about creating a system for distribution of compute resources in a data centre. The other was a more typical design a complex web app type of question that is more complex than just traditional crud. I actually messed up the second one because I didn’t really grok the problem and I struggled to effectively express my ideas well without a white board. The interviewer kept asking questions that cause me to go in circles because I didn’t really understand what he was hinting at. Definitely missed some key aspects of the problem and just kind of ran out of time without laying out any really coherent design
Great answer I really appreciate the time to write back... Fingers crossed hopefully this one will be a pass too and you will get through the HC
Yeah all the other interviews need to be good. HC may ask for a follow up single interview for more data. I was told I did really well in my interviews and passed HC easily but my recruiter did not tell me they approved me for PgM but not TPM and kept stringing me along into team matching, comp committee and a verbal offer. A later recruiter told me of that downshift. I think it was because of the design challenge question by a guy I could barely understand due to his accent. He was trying to have me solve a problem he was working on... live shifting to a new quota system.
Yeah, I also struggled to understand the interviewer in the one I performed poorly on. Bummer that there is some luck of the draw involved in this stuff
Wish you all the best! I’ve my G interview in a week. May I DM you for pointers? Thanks!
@op : did you receive any feedback?
Recruiter says feedback is pretty good. I am currently going through team matching before hiring committee
It is hard to figure out your own performance in system design interviews unless you did really bad. Some interviewers have a style where they ask a lot of questions but that could mean they are able to access depth of your knowledge. If it was actually bad, it will depend on how good other interviews went.