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Google | L3 | Bangalore
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Yoe - 2.5
Previous exp - SDE-1 at Ecommerce MNC
Recruiter reached out to me over Linkedin.
Had a quick meet call, recruiter mentioned it's for L4 opening which I was targeting.
Phone screen round was skipped.
Got the onsites scheduled for 2 weeks later, in December 2023.
Out of the 4 rounds, 3 got rescheduled because interviewer didn't join. Whole process took 1 month.
Onsite 1 - Started with - https://leetcode.com/problems/find-median-from-data-stream/
Then levelled it up with a harder followup, where definition of median can be any number in the range of two nearest powers of 2 from actual median.
1 2 3 5 6 7 8 -> actual median - 5 , Loose median -> any number between 4 to 8
Expected constant time and constant space solution.
interviewer gave a hint, I picked it and Solved with buckets having counts of number in a range of powers of 2.
bucket 1 - 0 to 2 - count
bucket 2 - 3 to 4 - count
bucket 3 - 5 to 8 - count
feedback given - to my surprise, interviewer gave a negative feedback in this round because he had to give a hint. Got a No hire in this :( . But got Excellent in Coding and Excellent in Communication.
Onsite 2 - 2 medium questions with hashmap. Solved with 10 minutes remaining.
feedback given - Hire
Onsite 3 - 1 hard DP grid problem. Gave the approach and wrote the optimal code, but missed a corner case, which interviewer pointed out.
feedback given- Leaning Hire
Onsite 4 - Googlyness, very tough situational and behavioral questions. Felt like a rapid fire round.
feedback given - Strong hire
Recuiter forwarded my packet to HC and scheduled a team fit call.
Team fit call - Expectations exchance, location preference, previous projects. Had a good connect with the HM.
One month later, the recruiter said that HC has returned without decision, since I had No hire in first Onsite. So I need to give another 2 rounds. The recruiter also said it's for L3 role since my experience is less than 3 years, which she missed telling me earlier.
Meanehile I got better offers from Uber, Intuit, Walmart, CommerceIq, Bp, Kotak Mahindra and few others, all for SDE-2. So I forfeited the Google process, recruiter said she can match the comp of other offers with stocks but not base, but it would still be L3, so I had to reject.
Experience - Very bad, almost all interviews got rescheduled because interviewers did not join, took more than 1 month to get HC result. Recruiter miscommunicated about job level.
Advice to fellow Leetcoders - Don't take hints in Google interviews, unless you're absolutely stuck. Some interviewers consider this as deal breaker.