Google Software Development Engineer interview questions

HR is on the ball pulling guiding you through the process. However, they seek talent first, then match you to a position. You aren't likely to interview with anyone you'll work with, or learn about specific projects. SDE interviews look strictly for a particular skills. You're in or out based on those.

Phone interview included using Google Docs as an electronic white board, on which I had to write a JavaScript function and some pseudo code for a simple algorithm. That went well. The on site interview was the opposite, except for the nice HR person who sounded supportive and encouraging. She reminded me to talk about order of complexity for each piece of code. There were six interviews, 45 minutes each. First interview, I was asked to write a recusive function to print all the possible words from the characters the user just typed. It was simple enough, but I missed one step and did not have enough time to recover. The second interview was another programming exercise and I nailed it. The third was more about doing dynamic layouts using CSS and how different browsers render them. The fourth interviewer was suppose to be the hiring manager. He took me to the cafeteria to get food and led me to our meeting room, which was hijacked by another group. We found another room which was half filled with broken furniture, not very appetizing. To top it off, he was busy looking at his cell phone and told me to just eat! I ate quickly and tried to engage him in a conversion, but was not very successful. The fifth person told me he was a substitute, cause his boss was pulled off at the last minute. Obviously he was not prepared so he spent all the time asking me how to improve web page performance, which was his specialty so there was no way I could impress him. I was so discouraged by this time that I just wanted to go home.