For context, I have a little over 2 YOE and was referred by a friend to Google. After a couple days, I received an email from the recruiter asking to setup a phone call. During the phone call we talked about my previous work experience and what level I was targeting. I told the recruiter I was recently promoted to SDE 2 at Amazon so looking for a similar level at Google. They said I could skip the phone interview given that I already interviewed at Google previously and I had other interviews happening. To my surprise, a couple days later I get an email back saying they were in between putting me on the L4 or L5 track and asked if I was comfortable with system design. I thought it was strange given my YOE, but how could I turn down the opportunity to go for L5. Fast forward a month and I am at the onsite. 2 out of 5 interviewers no show, so I have to reschedule them. I found this distasteful considering I took an entire day off of work to interview with them. For the coding portion, I got one LC hard back tracking problem, one LC medium recursion, and an interesting round where I was asked to implement a task queue system with additional concurrency constraints. The systems design interview was a typical scale problem. The 3 coding interviews went average and the systems design round was, in my opinion, my best round. After the onsite, the recruiter took around 3 weeks to get back to me saying that they wanted to present my case to the HC as L4 instead because my systems design was weak, but my coding was âstrong for L4â. I was fine with this given my 2 YOE. I ended up waiting another 3 weeks with multiple follow up emails asking what was going on. They explained it was taking a while. Ultimately, the HC decided not to hire and not to down level. The feedback was that they thought my systems design was my best interview and that I wasnât fast enough during the coding rounds, which completely contradicts what the recruiter told me.. Overall, it was quite a strange experience and the whole process took around 2 months to complete. Multiple times my recruiter dropped the ball on communication and took forever to respond to emails. I donât think I will ever interview there ever again.
Thanks for posting your experience. If it went as you said it did, it is a little strange they decided to reject you wholesale. It can be a game of chance and small margins sometimes I suppose
> I don't think I will ever interview there ever again. Let us know how your onsite next year goes.
I was asked 3 LC easies and because coding went well I got L4 with 1.5 YOE. Joke of a company. My system design was also one of the scenarios that have 100s of tutorials on YouTube.
3 Easies? At G? đŽ
The way you described it, it seems recruiter was clueless and given your own interpretation of your interview your coding was weaker so makes sense they said no. Good luck next time !
You are the second person to say they were told they werenât fast enough in their coding round. What is meant by this? Are they talking time complexity or physical typing speed? I donât understand
I wouldnât have tested my luck with L5 with 2 YOE lol. I would have just tried to kill the L4 interview and ask for a L5 interview after
Similar happened to me too (I have little over 2 year of experience). I got approved for L4 and waiting to hear about L5 approval - my recruiter is one of the best recruiters Iâve ever worked with my whole career(irrespective of whether I get L5 or not). As one of the suggestions above - I aced L4 first and asked for L5 after.
Congrats! Any tips for prep? I just hit LC again and man it's daunting, seems like will take me half a year just to get half decent.
I donât know anything more than what you already know :) Leetcode premium and explore cards- pay attention to data structures. Good thing is there is only handful of patterns once you get a hang of it. Just keep practicing.
TC or GTFO
Ok HR