I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Seattle, WA) in Dec 2021
Interview
The recruiter support and handoff throughout the process was solid and very organized. Had a couple of phone screens followed by a virtual on-site. The virtual on-site had 5 interviews: two analytical, one domain PM, two product design.
While three of the interviewers were quite warm and engaged, two interviewers looked quite miserable to be there. Also, both of them were late and didn't really bother with the niceties.
The first PM was quite aggressive and blunt, and I felt rattled enough during the interview. This felt like an Amazon bar raiser interview except the interviewer looked like he hated my presence even though this was my first time running into him. He poo-pooed my answer right off the bat and was quite expressive with his facial expressions. He wasn't wrong but it was a case of "not what you say, it's how you say it".
The second interviewer who I had a challenge with, was about 6 minutes late and looked completely checked out. My answers went over her head, and she had a good bit of challenge framing follow-up questions to keep the interview going. It didn't look like she wanted to be there either and complained about how stretched thin she is and how she needs more resources. She also ended the interview 2 minutes early which for a 45min interview was about 18% of the time
The other three interviewers were quite warm and pleasant to have a chat with. If nothing else, I'm going to be extra warm and nice towards people I interview from now on, thanks to this experience. I shared this feedback with my recruiter who was patient enough to listen to me. I didn't expect this experience from Google.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Usual questions around product design, improvement and estimation questions.
The process was straightforward and moved quickly. After applying online, a recruiter reached out within a few days for a brief phone screen. That was followed by two video interviews, one with the hiring manager and one with a panel of team members focused on project planning and stakeholder communication. The whole thing wrapped up in about two weeks, and the team was responsive and clear about next steps throughout.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I walked through a specific project where a key vendor delivery slipped. I explained how I flagged the risk early in our weekly status review, reset expectations with stakeholders, re-sequenced dependent tasks, and brought the timeline back within an acceptable range by negotiating a partial early delivery.
standard 1st round digital interview, they are asking about your experience, background, some behavioural questions and technical questions. and they also share a bit more about the role, culture and expectation
Very self-driven, first of multiple rounds, where I had to take the initiative to arrive at the problem, constraints, approach, solutions, tradeoffs and reasoning behind it in a matter of 30 minutes.