I interviewed at Google. Shit almost got real

Pre-story

I apply to Google, Amazon, Stripe almost every year since like 2017 or so, but I'm ghosted every time. This year was no exception. In spring I decided to aggressively apply to big tech companies, thus 3 of the applications went straight to Google and well all of them ended up getting "Not proceeding" status. After years of attempting I didn't count on being invited to an interview.

Weeks later a recruiter from Google messaged me on LinkedIn asking whether I would be open to have a call about opportunities in Google. After seeing the message, I was infatuated for a moment. I instantly scheduled a call, but still didn't closely think I'm gonna get to an interview stage. From this point things progressed really fast. We had a call and after a brief conversation the first interview is agreed to be scheduled couple of weeks later in May.

First interview

I started heavy leetcoding (problem solving). My first interview comes, I get a very simple hashmap problem, with detailed walk-through of my thought process I coded up the problem in around 10 minutes. Then there is a follow-up question from the interviewer, which I effortlessly develop in a couple of minutes. The remaining time I casually talk with the interviewer about Google.

A few days later the recruiter reaches out giving feedback and inviting to a set of virtual onsite interviews, but she also mentions that the initial opening she had meant for me was fulfilled although there is one more position I might be a fit. So far so good.

Virtual onsite

1 interview cleared and 3 remaining, 2 coding ones and 1 leadership interview in the course of 2 days upcoming. I ramp up my preparation intensity.

The next interview lands a lovely matrix problem I enjoyed solving. This one was noticeable more difficult and I immediately felt how stressful it can be during a real interview, but with a little help I manage to code up a working solution. Afterwards I answer the follow-up question, but don't really have any time left adjust my solution.

The second coding round did not go easy on me. The connection with the interviewer was bad, which added extra stress. The initial problem was simple and I code it up in less than 10 minutes. Then comes the follow-up, a vague, weird one. I stumble across it for the remaining time and I'm not able to solve it. The interviewer isn't happy, but we cut it right at the end of the allocated time.

The last leadership interview was like a 45-minutes interrogation. Bunch of questions about my experience, I almost broke a sweat. It felt like my answers were acceptable overall though.

Team matching

After all the interviews I felt like I failed, but deep inside I was very hopeful. A week later a call from the same recruiter, she gave the feedback: my performance was not 100%, but I have chances. She proposed to have a call with the hiring manager, I agreed.

This was a relatively short call, where the manager did most of the talking, introduced me to the position they have and at the end asked a few questions about tools and technologies I worked with. They seemingly went well and I was already dreaming about eating in Google's canteen and playing table tennis at their office :)

The next week I get an eye-opening email from my recruiter. It wasn't a match, but she writes, she's gonna keep looking for another position for me. I got baffled, what? why?

A few weeks passed, but only silence. I write an email to my recruiter asking to look out for positions in any office around Europe. The next thing I hear from her - she tags another recruiter and says that there is a position in London office and she assigns me to that recruiter. I text her my availability for a call. No response. Days later I send another email. Nothing. Another week another email. This time she got back to me, but to tell that the position is already closed and she'll look for other positions for me.

Current status

It's been weeks since the last conversation. My hope has already vanished. I guess it didn't work out this time and it's time for me to move on. You might say it was very unfortunate, but there are a ton of similar cases you can read on the internet. A bunch of people cleared their interviews, but still didn't get a job at one of the biggest tech companies in the world. It's tough times, so many people out there desperately trying to get to big tech, not all of them are gonna be lucky to land a chance I suppose.