I failed Google interview multiple times. Honestly I am convinced because the problem was truly hard. Recently I did some Leetcode contest in virtual. My ranking was about 5% to 10% like 1000 out of 10000. I mostly finish the first 3 easy or medium ones in about 30 minutes and the last hard one in another 40 minutes. Google's interview questions I encountered are much harder than the last hard one in the contest. But you need to solve it in 40 mins during interview. So I guess Google people are all top 3% or around 5%? Lol. Truely impressive if so. Any data points?
Here’s a data point: Post TC
Not true, many people on LC say they got G offers without being able to even complete a contest. They mostly ask easier hards or mid to harder mediums in my experience.
TBH. It has nothing to do with answering right/wrong questions. If the interviewer does not like you or there is no connection, you’ll get negative marks. It’s very subjective. That’s just the way it is
This checks out w all my experiences interviewing w them. Often will incorrectly correct you too.
Failed Google's interview multiple times too. After a lot of discussions with friends, I passed it with strong hire for L5. The secret? The interviewers are interested in how you think and your reasoning. It's not about writing a perfect flawless solution. Discuss the different approaches you can take to arrive at the answer and the pros and cons of each approach. Just... DON'T treat the interview like merely a leetcode challenge.
That's not always accurate. It depends on the interviewer. Some Google interviewers want flawless code. Good explanations, even with fully working code, aren't always enough. Sometimes they'll even nitpick about style and conventions that vary from company to company
It’s not about LC. I’ve failed so many people from competitive programming backgrounds for exactly this reason. Your job is not to solve the problem in isolation and share your solution, your job is to solve the problem in collaboration with me. This simulates the design process in Google where you’re not expected to know the solution on your own but discuss pros and cons. I passed several people who didn’t even come close to the the optimal solution but were outstanding communicators and slowly but surely optimized their algorithm as we discussed.
Can I get you in my next interview loop? Most recent loop, 3/4 interviewers were zombies and said nothing the entire time despite me thinking out loud throughout coding.
This guy is doing some Amazon-level trickery. Deliberately failing the competent engineers, while hiring the shitty ones. He's either securing some SCI buffer or he just got insecure when someone solved his hard question in 10 minutes. Or you know, he didn't like the candidate's skin color, but can't put that in the feedback form 🙂
Cracking Google is a function of your prep and luck. I have seen way too many smart people rejected and mediocre talent being accepted (including me). Don't let Google interviews define you.
Your first sentence literally applies everywhere including Jane Street, Citadel, and all the top tech places.
was it for SWE ? I know someone who got a job as infrastructure engineer and they only asked him medium leetcode.
I got hard ones for sure. Those questions later appeared on LC and marked as hard.