I applied through an employee referral. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Google
Interview
Got referred by a "Googler". Initially rebuffed by recruiter due to lack of a CS degree. Said Googler ensured that I had software development experience. Recruiter was very polite and timely with proceedings.
Interviewed with a Product Manager in Pittsburgh. They seemed cold, uninterested, and generally busy. Asked generally about my current work at a startup, then asked how I would implement a very broad feature in Gmail. It was a very large question, and they offered no guidance or clarification on what they were looking for. Went down a bunch of roadways with a bit of disinterest. Finally asked me why I wanted to work at Google and not a startup, then the interviewer had to leave for a meeting.
Overall: short, disinterested, and cold.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Let's say we wanted to implement an Amazon Mayday like feature in Gmail. How would that work?
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Google in Jan 2015
Interview
Recruiter contacted me to apply via LinkedIn. Even though I didn't have any PM experience I entertained the possibility. Step 1 was a call with the recruiter. He was 30 minutes late calling me and we had to reschedule. Strike 1.
Step 2 was an interview with a PM. He had never received a copy of my resume so we had to spend the first 5 minutes sorting that out. Strike 2. The phone he was on had a ton of static and I could barely hear him. I spent the next 30 minutes constantly having to ask him to repeat himself. Strike 3. He asked a couple of general PM related questions.
Google team ops needs to get their act together because this was one of the worst interview experiences that I've had.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design an app for a community of Celiac's disease patients. Talk about a product you hate.
I applied through college or university. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Google
Interview
Phone interview with a PM was pleasant and consisted of standard product manager type questions
In-person interview at HQ was less smooth. First interviewer showed up 15 minutes late and the whole day was late / rushed from there. Three 45-minute interviews before lunch, followed by a rushed lunch with a guy who made it clear he did not want to be there. After a 10 minute lunch, was whisked across campus to a room with broken teleconferencing equipment that did not zoom or allow use of the whiteboard. Final 2 interviews were via Google Hangout in the room with the broken equipment (the interviewers were on campus but apparently did not have time to walk over to the building I was in). Questions were standard difficulty but the lack of a whiteboard was annoying. Had 6 PMs and 1 engineer as interviewers.
Overall, very surprised that Google was so rushed and disorganized, and people were fairly harried and rude throughout. Didn't seem like such a pleasant place to work.
Also: Didn't seem very diverse. Out of 6 total interviewers plus my lunch companion, I never met a single female product manager or female engineer, all men.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
When are Bayesian methods more appropriate than "Artificial Intelligence" techniques for predictive analytics?