Google Software Engineer, new Grad Interview Questions and Answers

Round: Resume Shortlist
Experience: After submitting my resume, I was contacted by a recruiter. He asked me general questions about the timeline and status of my other interviews, and walked me through Google's hiring process.

Round: Test
Experience: This round is what Google calls 'Coding Sample'. It is a timed coding challenge consisting of two questions. I found both at a difficulty level of above average.

1. Given time in HH:MM format, what was the last time that could have been displayed using the same subset of digits?

2. There are N rose bushes in your garden. The roses are planted in a row and numbered from 1 to N (from left to right). You know exactly when each rose will come into bloom. Once flowering, the rose plant will bloom forever. Moreover, exactly one rose will start growing every day.
We mark out a continuous segment of the row in which roses are in bloom, and which cannot be expanded by adding other roses at either end. We call this a blossoming group. The size of such a group is the number of rose bushes in it.
Ex. Rose * Rose Rose
1 2 3 4
consists of two blossoming groups: [1:1] and [3:4]. Note that [3:3] is not a valid group, because it can be expanded by adding the fourth rose which is also flowering.
You particularly like long groups. These are blossoming groups containing at least K roses.
Your task is to find the latest day on which there are exactly M long blossoming groups.
Write a function:
class Solution {
public int solution (int[] A, int K, int M);
}
that, given a zero-indexed array A containing N integers (a permutation of numbers from 1 to N), where A[i] denotes the number of roses which will start blooming on day number i+1, returns the latest day (but not larger than N) on which there are exactly M long blossoming groups. If no such day exists, the function should return -1.

General Tips: Google does not spare you, it assess everything - your coding ability, comfort with data structures and algorithms, clean code, naming conventions, communication, thought process, how much time you took, did you ask the right clarifying questions, how many clues did you take.

From what I have realized, what matters the most is that you do not beat around the bush. Once you have thought of the solution, communicate it to your interviewer, he'll either ask you to code or think of a better solution. Think of all the corner cases prior to starting coding. Once you start coding, finish it cleanly in one complete go. Do not revisit your code multiple times to make corrections.

Also, Google takes its own sweet time with decisions. The entire process takes 5-6 weeks, and that is the best case.

I was rejected after the onsite interview. Usually, what follows is you talking to multiple teams who might be interested to hire you. If the team likes you and you like the team, only then a formal offer letter is extended.
Skills: Communication, Problem Solving, Analytical Skills, Time Management
Duration: 1-3 Months