Google Interview Questions

Question

I am preparing for an interview with Google (Mountain View) I was wondering if anybody could share some of the questions and experiences.

I have been told that they ask both brain teasers and coding/algorithm questions this time

Answer 1

Google query "google interview" yields a lot of questions and stories about interview at Google :)

Answer 2

I remember reading somewhere that interviewees at Google have to sign an NDA about the questions being asked. So how do you expect people to tell you what questions they have asked?

Anyway, as aku said, search the Internet.. you might not find specific questions, but you will get to know in which areas they ask questions from...

All the best!!

Answer 3

Steve Yegge's Get That Job At Google is the best resource I know of.

Answer 4

Although not directly related you might want to check this previous discussion:

interview-programming-test-practice

Or this book: Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/

Answer 5

Each interviewer is encouraged to think up their own questions, and we have a list of "banned" questions that are too widely known. Also, if you already know about the question it will be pretty obvious to the interviewer, and they'll either make it harder or just ask a different one.

Steve Yegge's advice that Simucal referenced is really good. Basically, know your stuff and don't be too downhearted if you don't get in. (Pretty much everyone I talk to at work says they're the fluke that did get in and shouldn't have done. We all view the recruiting process as a really, really high bar.)

Good luck!

Answer 6

Hi, I interviewed for the associate product manager position at google, you can read it up here

http://ferozeh.com/Interviews/Google/google.php

Answer 7

I'm not kidding, when Google conducted interview in our college in Bangalore...

I got very wiered question completely out of scope like "How many buses does local transport corporation own ?"

So, be ready with some local facts

n Best of luck :)

Answer 8

Take a look on this web site http://google-interview.com Seems they gather all "google stories" mentioned above.

Answer 9

I've put together 140 Google interview questions. You might find it helpful.

Check it out: http://blog.seattleinterviewcoach.com/2009/02/140-google-interview-questions.html

• Seattle Interview Coach

Answer 10

I have worked for Google and Microsft and done a ton of these interviews. We just published a book called "Algorithms for Interviews". Me and my co-author have put in 2 years of effort in it and we think the end result is very nice. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is preparing for an algorithms/coding interview. Also, I'd love to get your feedback on the book at [email protected]

Here is a sample of problems from the book:

• A triomino is formed by joining three unit-sized squares in an L-shape. A mutilated chessboard is made up of 64 unit-sized squares arranged in an 8-by-8 square, minus the top left square.

  Design an algorithm which computes a placement of 21 triominos that covers the mutilated chessboard.2.

• The mathematician G. H. Hardy was on his way to visit his collaborator S. Ramanujan who was in the hospital. Hardy remarked to Ramanujan that he traveled in a taxi cab with license plate 1729, which seemed a dull number. To this, Ramanujan replied that 1729 was a very interesting number - it was the smallest number expressible as the sum of cubes of two numbers in two different ways. Indeed, 10x10x10 + 9x9x9 = 12x12x12 + 1x1x1 = 1729.

  Given an arbitrary positive integer, how would you determine if it can be expressed as a sum of two cubes?

• There are fifty coins in a line---these could be pennies, nickels, dimes, or quarters. Two players, $F$ and $S$, take turns at choosing one coin each---they can only choose from the two coins at the ends of the line. The game ends when all the coins have been picked up. The player whose coins have the higher total value wins. Each player must select a coin when it is his turn, so the game ends in fifty turns.

  If you want to ensure you do not lose, would you rather go first or second? Design an efficient algorithm for computing the maximum amount of money the first player can win.

• You are given two sorted arrays. Design an efficient algorithm for computing the k-th smallest element in the union of the two arrays. (Keep in mind that the elements may be repeated.)

For more sample problems, you can look here.

Answer 11

I used this one earlier for Google Interview questions Few more good ones are found here as well. http://www.freshersinterviewquestions.com/category/google-interview-questions/