I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 days. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Jan 2012
Interview
Mechanical, tight, like a well oiled machine, but it made it pretty clear that the anti-corporate culture they pioneered is dying by the day. It was very interesting to see the inner workings of Google. They paid to fly me out, paid for a rental car and hotel while I was there. It was worth the trip regardless that I was uninterested in the job.
Very self-driven, first of multiple rounds, where I had to take the initiative to arrive at the problem, constraints, approach, solutions, tradeoffs and reasoning behind it in a matter of 30 minutes.
You would have to do a hiring assessment first, then a recruiter screening follows. First round interview with the hiring manager. Majorly product sense and product improvement. The questions were not direct though.
Overall a lot of steps to the interview process. Talked to different people and had opportunities to ask questions. Many different stages which made it a lengthy process overall. Wasn't too bad.
