I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Sydney)
Interview
I received an email from a Google recruiter asking for a time to schedule an initial phone call. After a few emails, the date was set for a week later
The first call came, it lasted about 60 minutes, it went from theoretical to a very technical level of questions
After a few days I received an invitation for a round of on site interviews in their premises in Sydney. Since the time I would have taken to get there for me was about 3 to 4 weeks (due to visa constrains) they decided to continue with the phone calls interviews
The next interview took almost 90 minutes
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
During the first call, I was prompted at first with very basic questions about operating system and networking, then in went deeper on questions like: "what happen if you type telnet www.google.com", the questions within this one ranged from "tell me the process uses the OS to create that connection" to "how the data travels through the internet to reach the target server".
The second call went even deeper in troubleshooting Linux, web servers, dns, load balancing, IP, routing and so on. Also, the recruiter asked me to code some python and bash scripts in order to solve some problems made for that interview
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Google
Interview
Great experience - cool people, stimulating interviews, very efficient HR.
Two coding questions on phone interview - one on adding integers of arbitrary size and another that I can't recall.
On-site interview entailed 5 back-to-back interviews and lunch.
1. Talk with a manager and question regarding TCP Path MTU discovery - black hole connection.
2. Others were whiteboard coding and design questions. Study up on algorithms and data structs!
Will be trying again in a year.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you design a real-time sports data collection app.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Mar 2011
Interview
I applied online and never heard back.
Several months later, I was referred by a friend at the company, and recruited to be an SRE based on my experience. Since the SRE jobs would have required relocation, I opted to interview for a Software Engineer role. I didn't get an offer as a Software Engineer, but based on the feedback from that I was recruited again the next year as an SRE, and was ready to relocate at that time.
The hiring process at Google is very slow. It took several weeks between resuming contact with their recruiter and getting an offer. If you're out of work and looking to get a job ASAP, Google may not be the best choice. If you're in no rush, it can be very worthwhile.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
With respect to my NDA, I won't go into details, but I was asked to design a highly-available production service from bare metal all the way to algorithms and data structures.