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Google interview notes, page 45 of 215

FAANG / Big Tech

Most of these Google write-ups come from Software Engineers (1,167), then Product Managers (686) and Data Scientists (125). The most reported rounds are the product sense round (667), the technical phone screen (660), the behavioral / leadership round (252) and the onsite coding round (214).

2146 interview notes · updated Oct 2026

Google·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Apr 2026
Google SWE interview with a heavy focus on Linux systems debugging and networking fundamentals. Three meaty technical questions back to back, felt more like a senior SRE screen than a typical software eng round.
  • A Linux server's CPU usage suddenly spikes. Walk through your diagnostic process: which commands you'd run, how you'd isolate the offending processes or threads, and how you'd tell whether the bottleneck is user CPU, kernel CPU, or IO wait. What are your next steps once you've identified the cause?
  • A service is showing high latency. How would you use tools like netstat, tcpdump, and traceroute or mtr to figure out whether the problem is on the client, the server, or somewhere in the network? What specific signals are you looking for, like SYN backlog, retransmits, RTT, or packet drops?
  • Explain how DNS resolution works end to end, from stub resolver through recursive and authoritative servers, including caching and TTLs. Also, what's the practical difference between dig and nslookup, and when would you reach for one over the other?

“This one I actually felt decent about.”

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Google·Product Manager·Onsite - Product Sense / Strategy

Apr 2026
Got a product design question at Google centered on fixing their own recruiting pipeline. The problem was framed with a real internal stat which made it feel less like a hypothetical and more like something they actually care about.
  • Google spends around a billion dollars a year on recruiting and loses a lot of good candidates in the process. How would you design a product to reduce these false negatives?

“The billion dollar number threw me a bit, felt like a flex or a trap but I think it was just context.”

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Google·Product Manager·Onsite - Product Sense / Strategy

Apr 2026
Interviewed at Google and got a strategy question about Amazon's retail acquisition behavior that I was not expecting at all.
  • Why does Amazon acquire retail companies but continue to operate them as independent brands rather than folding them in?

“Froze for a second because I expected a Google-specific question, not one about a competitor's M&A logic.”

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Google·Product Manager·Onsite - Product Sense / Strategy

Apr 2026
Google PM interview with a mix of product sense and metrics questions. Nothing too wild but the non-tech product improvement question tripped me up more than I expected.
  • Tell me about a product you've worked on and what metrics you used to measure its success.
  • Name two tech products and two non-tech products you admire. Then pick one of the non-tech products and walk me through how you'd improve it.
  • What metrics would you use to evaluate whether your proposed improvement was successful?

“Pretty standard opener but I rambled.”

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Google·Product Manager·Onsite - Product Sense / Strategy

Apr 2026
Got a product strategy question for a Google PM role that was basically 'go figure out how YouTube breaks Hollywood.' Short interview, one meaty question, left feeling like I either nailed it or completely missed the point.
  • How would you use YouTube to disrupt the traditional film industry?

“I went straight into creator monetization and long-form content, which felt safe but probably too obvious.”

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Google·Product Designer·Onsite - Product Sense / Strategy

Apr 2026
Google product design interview, one question about a physical object which felt a bit out of left field for a tech company but apparently they do this kind of thing.
  • Design a car door handle.

“My first instinct was to just describe a handle and call it a day, which would've been a disaster.”

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Google·Software Engineer·Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership

Apr 2026
Behavioral round at Google for a software engineering role. Just one question but it had a lot of layers to it, more of a situational judgment thing than a typical conflict story.
  • A teammate is consistently underperforming, and they've told others that your pace and work style make them feel pressured. How do you handle this while keeping the team collaborative, reducing tension, and still hitting delivery goals?

“I went straight to the conflict angle and started talking about having a 1:1 with the teammate, but I think I missed the more interesting part of the question for a while.”

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Google·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen

Apr 2026
Google SWE interview with a two-part interval problem. Pretty classic LC territory but the second part tripped me up more than I expected.
  • Given two intervals [s1, e1] and [s2, e2], write a function to determine whether they overlap.
  • Given a list of meeting time intervals, what is the minimum number of conference rooms needed so no two overlapping meetings share a room?

“Straightforward once you think about it the right way.”

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Google·Software Engineer·Onsite - Behavioral / Leadership

Apr 2026
Behavioral round at Google, pretty much one big question about team dynamics and credit-stealing. Not a technical screen at all, just them digging into how you handle interpersonal mess.
  • Describe a situation where a teammate took credit for the group's work. How did you respond, and what steps did you take to make sure everyone's contributions were properly recognized?

“This one sat with me longer than I expected.”

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Google·Product Manager·Onsite - Product Sense / Strategy

Apr 2026
Google PM interview with a single open-ended product design question. Pretty short on details but the question itself has a lot of room to run with.
  • Design an elevator. Think big and be creative.

“I went straight to the basics first, capacity, floors, buttons, which in hindsight was probably the most boring possible read of the prompt.”

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