Google (Senior) Software Engineer interview questions
based on 357 ratings - Updated Jun 9, 2026
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(Senior) Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Google with 3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 100% positive. To compare, the company-average is 65.3% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for (Senior) Software Engineer roles take an average of 60 days to get hired, when considering 1 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Google overall takes an average of 42 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Google as a (Senior) Software Engineer according to 1 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 50%
Phone interview: 50%
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Their standard process: Applied on line through their website, was contacted by their recruiter within 3 days for initial talks, set up the phone interview for the next week which was technical and involved solving one programming question, called on site for 5 back to back technical interviews with their programmers. It was a good experience.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Calculate the point when the time/space complexity for a merge sort would be as good/bad as a insertion sort for given values for step executions.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Google
Interview
Contacted by recruiter. Send my CV to recruiter which was reviewed by engineers. Schedule telephone interview with engineer through HR department. Interview was conducted by phone through a shared Google Docs documents.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Boulder, CO) in May 2010
Interview
I submitted a resume online to Google/Sketchup Boulder office on Pearl Street. I did an initial phone screening discussing past work history and some development and programming questions that were somewhat perfunctory.
I came for in in person interview. The office is a very stylish loft above retail on Pearl Street, basically the startup with too much money dream-office. Huge double monitors, fast workstations, slack dress code, unused foosball table etc... Lunch was catered in daily apparently from a posh catering company and the food was excellent.
I interviewed with one of the sketchup founders who clearly thought very highly of himself.
The position was for implementing extensions to the javascript interpreter scripting engine for sketchup.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a large data set that essentially consumes all working memory, what kind of sort would one implement.
Now add the condition that the elements are alphanumeric and same length.