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Google Software Engineer Interview Questions

Review this list of 120 Google Software Engineer interview questions and answers verified by hiring managers and candidates.
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    15 answers
    Video answer for 'Design a reservation and payment system for a parking garage.'
    +12

    "Since there is a need for the data to be accurate and consistent without any latency to allocate a spot, can't the data be synchronously synced to replicas after every write as the number of writes are not many per min, instead of read lock phenomena Let me know if i am on a wrong thought here."

    Chitapuram N. - "Since there is a need for the data to be accurate and consistent without any latency to allocate a spot, can't the data be synchronously synced to replicas after every write as the number of writes are not many per min, instead of read lock phenomena Let me know if i am on a wrong thought here."See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    11 answers
    +8

    "In my time at Snapp! I was in charge of communicating the product backlog to our CEO. We had a shared Jira board that he had access to and I made specifically for him. One day he saw me in the office and said he doesn’t know anything about our backlog and that’s because I failed to communicate with him. I got upset at first because of the fact that I made the dashboard exclusively for him. But I tried to ask questions to understand his point of view in depth. He then mentioned he doesn't have t"

    Ra R. - "In my time at Snapp! I was in charge of communicating the product backlog to our CEO. We had a shared Jira board that he had access to and I made specifically for him. One day he saw me in the office and said he doesn’t know anything about our backlog and that’s because I failed to communicate with him. I got upset at first because of the fact that I made the dashboard exclusively for him. But I tried to ask questions to understand his point of view in depth. He then mentioned he doesn't have t"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Behavioral
    +9 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    9 answers
    +6

    "I use a data driven approach by ensuring there is a deep-dive on all alternatives. My approach to tradeoffs is around how to achieve the customer experience needed. I ensure there is an immediate path to green for a solution and a follow-up solution addressing the problem rightly."

    Syed I. - "I use a data driven approach by ensuring there is a deep-dive on all alternatives. My approach to tradeoffs is around how to achieve the customer experience needed. I ensure there is an immediate path to green for a solution and a follow-up solution addressing the problem rightly."See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Behavioral
    +1 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    4 answers
    +1

    "I tried solving this problem and here is the recorded video for the answer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1tOkeQjyI4 And here is the link to Excalidraw board - https://excalidraw.com/#json=uabNFHcZm5qNh8CInMvyh,Wn9Vf1ZhGdl_iBCQYFkYdw"

    Rjj - "I tried solving this problem and here is the recorded video for the answer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1tOkeQjyI4 And here is the link to Excalidraw board - https://excalidraw.com/#json=uabNFHcZm5qNh8CInMvyh,Wn9Vf1ZhGdl_iBCQYFkYdw"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    16 answers
    Video answer for 'Given an integer array nums and an integer k, return true if nums has a subarray of at least two elements whose sum is a multiple of k.'
    +12

    " def hasgoodsubarray(nums, k): if not nums: return False if k == 0: for i in range(len(nums)): if nums[i] == 0 and nums[i + 1] == 0: return True return False map = {0:-1} sum = 0 for i,val in enumerate(nums): sum += val rem = sum % k if rem in map: if i - map[rem] >= 2: return True else: map[rem] = i return False print(hasgoods"

    Abinash S. - " def hasgoodsubarray(nums, k): if not nums: return False if k == 0: for i in range(len(nums)): if nums[i] == 0 and nums[i + 1] == 0: return True return False map = {0:-1} sum = 0 for i,val in enumerate(nums): sum += val rem = sum % k if rem in map: if i - map[rem] >= 2: return True else: map[rem] = i return False print(hasgoods"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +4 more
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  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    11 answers
    Video answer for 'Redesign the airport experience.'
    +8

    "I would like to speak loud to narrow the scope of this question so I can be effective in identifying a solution to the problem on hand. Hope that is OK. You mentioned, “Re-design the airport experience”. Is there a goal for this re-design exercise? Some top goals that come to my mind are the following. Please guide me so I can set it and we can proceed from there. “Increase the number of passengers who travel to and from this airport” “Improve customer satisfaction” **“Get in"

    Tara J. - "I would like to speak loud to narrow the scope of this question so I can be effective in identifying a solution to the problem on hand. Hope that is OK. You mentioned, “Re-design the airport experience”. Is there a goal for this re-design exercise? Some top goals that come to my mind are the following. Please guide me so I can set it and we can proceed from there. “Increase the number of passengers who travel to and from this airport” “Improve customer satisfaction” **“Get in"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Product Design
    +1 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    13 answers
    Video answer for 'Design a rate limiter.'
    +9

    "Rate Limiter is to limit the number of request from a particular IP Address. Rate limiter will block the IP address to reduce the load on server. It should be highly available and handle concurrent requests. Blocked IP addresses should be kept in a pool which is present in shared cache. We need to keep threshold value after it reaches threshold value it should start blocking IP address. All these ip address to be kept in No SQL DB. Batch will run that will clear the cache and delete all the bloc"

    Ashish G. - "Rate Limiter is to limit the number of request from a particular IP Address. Rate limiter will block the IP address to reduce the load on server. It should be highly available and handle concurrent requests. Blocked IP addresses should be kept in a pool which is present in shared cache. We need to keep threshold value after it reaches threshold value it should start blocking IP address. All these ip address to be kept in No SQL DB. Batch will run that will clear the cache and delete all the bloc"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    2 answers

    "Thanks for the question! This is one of my favourite topics because it’s at the core of what we do as PMs DAILY: making the complex simple to drive alignment. I’ve got a structured way to approach this, and I’ll use it to explain payment aggregators - like Plaid - and how they enable Open Banking, with a twist about a technical hiccup I’ve seen in practice. Let’s dive in. I start by assessing the audience. Say I’m talking to a marketing manager at Transak - someone sharp but not techni"

    Adarsh S. - "Thanks for the question! This is one of my favourite topics because it’s at the core of what we do as PMs DAILY: making the complex simple to drive alignment. I’ve got a structured way to approach this, and I’ll use it to explain payment aggregators - like Plaid - and how they enable Open Banking, with a twist about a technical hiccup I’ve seen in practice. Let’s dive in. I start by assessing the audience. Say I’m talking to a marketing manager at Transak - someone sharp but not techni"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Behavioral
    +3 more
  • +2

    "Referring to https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/03/23/15-strategies-for-balancing-competing-stakeholder-priorities/?sh=7c82aa68262f Understand the conflicting priorities and align it with the goal/ objectives and the company mission. Start with the Least Common Denominator between the conflicting priorities to come to a commonality and start from there to objectively approach the next imp priority Always keep communication on and be transparent with 'equality' an"

    Pramod V. - "Referring to https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/03/23/15-strategies-for-balancing-competing-stakeholder-priorities/?sh=7c82aa68262f Understand the conflicting priorities and align it with the goal/ objectives and the company mission. Start with the Least Common Denominator between the conflicting priorities to come to a commonality and start from there to objectively approach the next imp priority Always keep communication on and be transparent with 'equality' an"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Behavioral
    +6 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    10 answers
    Video answer for 'Design a web crawler.'
    +7

    "I think, robots.txt file is provided by websites which web-crawler is crawling. Am I wrong somewhere or missing some context?"

    S V. - "I think, robots.txt file is provided by websites which web-crawler is crawling. Am I wrong somewhere or missing some context?"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    4 answers
    +1

    "Situation - A time I dealt with conflict while on a team was while I was working at Shopify on physical and digital gift card refund point of sale solutions. The situation was that we were dealing with complex technical constraints including not changing particular UI components behavior to act as they should be intended. On the refund screen, the existing design was using a toggle on the same screen to bring up a modal for gift card selection to either select digital or physical options. Thi"

    Ben G. - "Situation - A time I dealt with conflict while on a team was while I was working at Shopify on physical and digital gift card refund point of sale solutions. The situation was that we were dealing with complex technical constraints including not changing particular UI components behavior to act as they should be intended. On the refund screen, the existing design was using a toggle on the same screen to bring up a modal for gift card selection to either select digital or physical options. Thi"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Behavioral
    +5 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    3 answers

    "2 Approaches: 1) The more intuitive approach is doing a multi-source BFS from all cats and storing the distance of closest cats. Then do a dfs/bfs from rat to bread. Time Complexity: O(mn + 4^L) where L is path length, worst case L could be mn Space Complexity: O(m*n) 2) The first approach should be fine for interviews. But if they ask to optimize it further, you can use Binary Search. Problems like "Finding max of min distance" or "Finding min of max" could be usually solved by BS. "

    Karan K. - "2 Approaches: 1) The more intuitive approach is doing a multi-source BFS from all cats and storing the distance of closest cats. Then do a dfs/bfs from rat to bread. Time Complexity: O(mn + 4^L) where L is path length, worst case L could be mn Space Complexity: O(m*n) 2) The first approach should be fine for interviews. But if they ask to optimize it further, you can use Binary Search. Problems like "Finding max of min distance" or "Finding min of max" could be usually solved by BS. "See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +1 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    34 answers
    +28

    "Idea for solution: Reverse the complete char array Reverse the words separated by space. i.e. Find the space characters and the reverse the subarray between two space characters. vector reverseSubarray(vector& arr, int s, int e) { while (s reverseWords(vector& arr ) { int n = arr.size(); reverse(arr, 0, n - 1"

    Rahul M. - "Idea for solution: Reverse the complete char array Reverse the words separated by space. i.e. Find the space characters and the reverse the subarray between two space characters. vector reverseSubarray(vector& arr, int s, int e) { while (s reverseWords(vector& arr ) { int n = arr.size(); reverse(arr, 0, n - 1"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +4 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    8 answers
    Video answer for 'Design a metrics and logging service.'
    +1

    "For somebody who needs accessibility accommodation, this doesn't have a transcript so it is not useful to me."

    Shivastuti K. - "For somebody who needs accessibility accommodation, this doesn't have a transcript so it is not useful to me."See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    8 answers
    +5

    "t"

    Srikhar S. - "t"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Behavioral
    +4 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    56 answers
    Video answer for 'Merge Intervals'
    +48

    "const mergeIntervals = (intervals) => { const compare = (a, b) => { if(a[0] b[0]) return 1 else if(a[0] === b[0]) { return a[1] - b[1] } } let current = [] const result = [] const sorted = intervals.sort(compare) for(let i = 0; i = b[0]) current[1] = b[1] els"

    Kofi N. - "const mergeIntervals = (intervals) => { const compare = (a, b) => { if(a[0] b[0]) return 1 else if(a[0] === b[0]) { return a[1] - b[1] } } let current = [] const result = [] const sorted = intervals.sort(compare) for(let i = 0; i = b[0]) current[1] = b[1] els"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +6 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    7 answers
    +4

    "The company culture is very supportive and collaborative. Googlers are encouraged to be creative and innovative, and there is a lot of freedom to explore new ideas. The work is challenging and rewarding. Googlers have the opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects that have a real impact on the world. The company is committed to diversity and inclusion. Google is a great place to work for people from all backgrounds and with all different perspectives. I am confident that I would b"

    Praful B. - "The company culture is very supportive and collaborative. Googlers are encouraged to be creative and innovative, and there is a lot of freedom to explore new ideas. The work is challenging and rewarding. Googlers have the opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects that have a real impact on the world. The company is committed to diversity and inclusion. Google is a great place to work for people from all backgrounds and with all different perspectives. I am confident that I would b"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Behavioral
    +3 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    1 answer

    "I would first like to clarify the requirements and assumptions for the system. I am assuming that the system should support basic file operations such as uploading, downloading, deleting, renaming files, and viewing directory structures along with file permissions. The file size can range from around 1MB to 1GB, and the system is expected to be read heavy, meaning downloads will be more frequent than uploads. The system should support a large scale, for example around 10 million total users with"

    Yashasvi C. - "I would first like to clarify the requirements and assumptions for the system. I am assuming that the system should support basic file operations such as uploading, downloading, deleting, renaming files, and viewing directory structures along with file permissions. The file size can range from around 1MB to 1GB, and the system is expected to be read heavy, meaning downloads will be more frequent than uploads. The system should support a large scale, for example around 10 million total users with"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    10 answers
    Video answer for 'Explain how to find a target sum in an array.'
    +6

    "// C++ program to print the count of // subsets with sum equal to the given value X #include using namespace std; // Recursive function to return the count // of subsets with sum equal to the given value int subsetSum(int arr[], int n, int i, int sum, int count) { // The recursion is stopped at N-th level // where all the subsets of the given array // have been checked if (i == n) { // Incrementing the count if sum is // equal to 0 and returning the count if (sum == 0)"

    Ajay U. - "// C++ program to print the count of // subsets with sum equal to the given value X #include using namespace std; // Recursive function to return the count // of subsets with sum equal to the given value int subsetSum(int arr[], int n, int i, int sum, int count) { // The recursion is stopped at N-th level // where all the subsets of the given array // have been checked if (i == n) { // Incrementing the count if sum is // equal to 0 and returning the count if (sum == 0)"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Data Structures & Algorithms
    +1 more
  • Google logoAsked at Google 
    1 answer

    "These are a set of utilities used to manage the heap memory as part of an application. The C standard library implements these functions. malloc(bytes) takes a number of bytes and returns a pointer to the start of the allocated buffer. If the allocation failed, a null pointer is returned instead. calloc(count, size) behaves like malloc(count * size), but also zero-initializes the allocated buffer, assuming the allocation succeeded. realloc(ptr, size) takes a pointer to a previously al"

    J R. - "These are a set of utilities used to manage the heap memory as part of an application. The C standard library implements these functions. malloc(bytes) takes a number of bytes and returns a pointer to the start of the allocated buffer. If the allocation failed, a null pointer is returned instead. calloc(count, size) behaves like malloc(count * size), but also zero-initializes the allocated buffer, assuming the allocation succeeded. realloc(ptr, size) takes a pointer to a previously al"See full answer

    Software Engineer
    Coding
    +1 more
Showing 21-40 of 120