Google Software Engineer(Internship) interview questions
based on 820 ratings - Updated Jun 18, 2026
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Software Engineer(Internship) applicants have rated the interview process at Google with 3.5 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 50% positive. To compare, the company-average is 79.2% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer(Internship) roles take an average of 14 days to get hired, when considering 2 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Google overall takes an average of 33 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Google as a Software Engineer(Internship) according to 2 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 33%
Phone interview: 33%
Presentation: 33%
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It is evident these days that Google has started its drift from their vintage image of extremely talented and humble professionals with a near perfect interview process to the more common tech pools of mediocre engineers who work hard to get into google more than just talent. The recruiters (phd interns) felt like they had to carry out the interviews and scheduling forcefully amidst the thousands of applications they receive. The interviews were so standard to an extent, I sometimes wonder how would they differentiate between a person who really has a good problem solving and thought process and someone who has practiced those questions for hundreds of hours to just game the system.
The last interviewer went to an extent as to say he was volunteering because google had asked him to, so he pretty much had no interest in how interviews would be evaluated or whether a candidate is interested (implicitly telling to not ask questions about the internship role and stuff).
The process from resume submission to rejection took 3.5 months for a phd internship position. Just reflect on whether it is even worthwhile for a phd in the midst of its research program to dedicate this much time for a rejection for an intern role and for a role where he/she would at the end be matched to a generic project. (could be worthwhile if you have no other options in case your phd project prospects in industry are not good)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Asked to reverse engineer and explain a python code (written by the interviewer on the google doc) - essentially was a cycle detection algorithm - then told to convert it to c++ code.
Google is remarkably quick at getting back to applicants when applying through directly on Google's employment opportunities page. I received an email two days after submitting my resume and was asked to schedule two back to back 45 minute interviews the following week. Each interview was technical in nature and I was asked to solve two coding questions by typing code into a shared Google document with my interviewer. After asking questions and coding my solutions, the interviewer and I went over my solution and discussed aspects of it such as the running time, security and readability of the code.
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Google (San Francisco, CA) in Nov 2018
Interview
Got referral from a Google employee, finished an online code challenge, got email from recruiters to schedule 2 phone interviews.
The interviewers called right on time, and asked to open the Google doc to code. The interviewer describe the question and gave examples, then ask you to think out loudly(meaning talk what you are thinking), then I proposed my solution, but the interviewer would ask you to increase the time or space efficiency. I didn't get enough time to write down my code.