Google

I interviewed for the Google SWE Intern role through my college’s on-campus process. After the coding assessment, I was shortlisted for the interview rounds. The interviews were strongly focused on DSA, and the interviewers paid a lot of attention to how I approached the problem rather than just the final code. Round 1 – Technical (45 minutes):** The interviewer started with a tree-based problem involving a company hierarchy. I had to determine information about employees and their relationships in the hierarchy. I initially considered a binary-tree representation, but after discussing the constraints, I realized that a generic/N-ary tree was more appropriate. I implemented a DFS-based solution and then handled a follow-up where the problem constraints were slightly changed. Round 2 – Technical (45 minutes):** The first question was based on graphs. I was given a graph representing connections and had to determine whether a valid path satisfying certain conditions existed. I discussed BFS and explained the complexity before coding. The interviewer then introduced a follow-up that required modifying the traversal logic. The second part involved a string/array problem where I had to optimize the initial approach. I discussed the brute-force solution first and then moved toward a more efficient approach using hashing. There were also a few behavioral questions, such as **“Tell me about a time you took leadership in a team”** and **“How would you handle a disagreement with a teammate?”** I was careful to communicate my thought process, generate edge cases, dry-run the code, and explain time and space complexity. I was eventually selected for the Google SWE Intern position through campus recruitment.