Does going through the university/new grad hiring pipeline make it easier, harder, or the same difficulty to get a job?
Partial answer from my experience: The intern conversion process seems pretty easy as long as one has decent internship feedback.
G still has additional rounds to convert right?
I just had to do 3 interviews at the end of my internship, but I'm not sure how seriously those were taken. I've done a few intern conversion interviews recently, and it seems they only need to do 2 now. There's definitely a different feel when you're interviewing an intern who has been at Google all summer.
new grads have it harder on the algo side. easier overall (no system design)
I had plenty of system design
requirements are far less. even yelp does system design, but the expectations are lower