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Google | L5 | Rejected
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I recently went through the interview loop for L5 SDE role at Google. Here's my experience.
Phone Screen: A creative question on an n-ary tree. Nothing that can be found on leetcode. But it was solvable. Round went ok and I proceeded to onsite
Onsite-1: Question related to sliding window along with simple follow.
Self-assessment: Hire
Onsite-2: DP question on strings. Again simple enough with a tricky follow-up.
Self-assessment: Hire
Onsite-3: Question related to number theory. Fortunately, I am strong in this area and got through this round the fastest!
Self-assessment: Strong Hire!
Onsite-4: Standard system design question related to one of the Google products.
Self-assessment: Hire/Lean Hire
Recruiter came back with a negative for the system design round and my loop ended right then and there.
I enquired if I can at least be considered for a downgrade, but recruiter mentioned that they don't any hiring managers who are looking for L4 currently.
Prepared real hard for the interview. Don't know where to go from here. I am devastated actually, given that things were going so well in the interviews that I almost started mini celebrations after my System design round!
My advice for others:
Don't underestimate the power of luck in Google interviews and have a plan-B cushion ready to fallback to, otherwise you will fall very hard like me.