I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Google (San Francisco, CA)
Interview
I interviewed as a generalist who would go into a candidate pool and then get team matched. After the initial recruiter screening, there are a few rounds of interviews which is typical. There were: 1) product sense - design a fake product, 2) product strategy - "should Google go into xyz", 3)analytical sense, which is similar to a market sizing question in consulting, something along the line of estimate the number of lights turned on at 8 pm in SF, 4) technical interview with an engineer where I was asked to pseudo-code. I do well in this kind of interviews but I don't like them. I don't see how it helps with actual work once you are hired. All the interviewers were polite but clearly bored because they had no skin in the game (i.e. you won't work with them when you get hired); the tech interviewer was especially acting bored and unimpressed, and had his eyes closed during the interview multiple times.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How many lights are on in SF at 8 pm for an average day?
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.
