Google Interview Experience for SWE Intern (Off-Campus)

Round 1:

I knew that my majors were non-circuital (Mechanical) and most of the Tech Companies do not allow us for SDE/SWE, so I applied through referral (I got it through LinkedIn randomly messaging). But the main game is not a referral, it is the “Resume”, even some of my friends who applied through referrals received rejections.

After getting shortlisted for the Interview (I received the invitation mail 1 month from the date of applying), I analyzed my resume and contacted some other candidates who were also shortlisted for the same, some of the major key points –
I found in their resume also (which could be the key to shortlisting):

• Google Coding Competition Ranks(Kickstart, Hash Code etc).
• Google Keyword anywhere in the resume (For Ex-Google Students Developer Clubs).
• Proper Links to Coding Profiles (Especially LeetCode and Codechef).
• A bit of Flex of contest ranks in the Achievements section.
• And Basic Projects (Focused on the backend tech).

Round 2:

I was invited for a short 15-minute call with the recruiter, she asked some basic questions related to projects, CGPA, No of DSA questions, and she pointed out my majors and said that this was for a tech-oriented branch, I said “Yes my minors are Data Science” she was like “ok I’ll note it”. And asked me the appropriate date and time to schedule my Tech Round for further recruitment procedure.

Round 3:

I received an email with a meet link scheduled with my selected and a Google Doc link for the Interview, I joined the meet and an engineer from Google took my Interview, for the first 2 minutes it was a basic intro he directly jumped to DSA questions and asked me to open the google doc provided, there he pasted a DSA question and asked me the approach and code it there(in Doc).

• It was my first-ever tech interview and I over-prepared for some advanced topics like Graph, Topo sorts, and trees(ignored the basics), and also expecting a question from the same, but he asked me a simple question related to “Sliding Window”, I took some time and told him the approach, he asked me to code it, which I did, then he asked me to optimize it, which I also did O(n^2) to O(n), but I realized that I already took a lot of time for just one question and the Interview ended but on a good note.

• Unfortunately, I was not selected for further rounds (maybe because of time management), It was really regretful that I missed the opportunity but I tried to look for the positive side of it which is the experience & learnings I gained ☺️.
• For a core branch + non-circuital student Interested in Software development this was like a dream come true, receiving an Interview call from Google.