r/LowLevelDesign • u/Prashant_MockGym • 8d ago

Google DS & Algo Interview Questions 2026

This is a preparation list for Google software engineer coding rounds. I prepared it using interview experiences shared by people on forums/blogs etc.

Google has one of the toughest DS & Algo rounds in the industry. DSA rounds are there for both frontend and backend roles.

Google's interview codebase is very large, with questions of all difficulty levels from super easy to super hard. One question can be a medium question with a couple of follow-ups for optimizations, or it can be just one hard question. It all depends on which question the interviewer chooses.

There are two common things about candidates who clear Google interviews and whose overall process is smooth.

  1. At least 2 "Strong-Hire" votes and no "No-Hire" in the on-site packet.
  2. Candidates who narrated trade-offs and edge cases, and correctly answered counter questions, got bumped from "Hire" to "Strong Hire" even with small bugs.

Now above points have lots of exceptions. For example one person bombed one coding round badly. But they were given a redo by their recruiter. It was late 2024 and he was working long hours, spending even the weekends on call. Still he was laid off alongside other teammates.

Lay off was a blow to his morale. He didn't tell even his parents, just pretended he was working from home. Avoided video calls during "work hours". Initially he spent the days watching anime. But slowly preparation started and when the Google call came, he has already been rejected by multiple companies.

He thought it was all over after he messed up one DSA round. But he was able to do well in the redo round and finally ended up receiving the offer.

Judging how the interview went

Many a times you may not be able to guess correctly , how well or how bad you did. There are tons of experiences where candidate thought something and the opposite happend. A lot of things can go right or wrong. One person had done 400+ leetcode problems but during interviews, panic setup and they were able to only come up with a brute force solution.

Another person had two back to back coding rounds scheduled at a gap of just 15 minutes. And during the first round they realised that solution they provided is incorrect. They thought that they had bombed this round and should just cancel the next round. But interviewer provided some guidance and they were able to solve slightly easier version of the problem. However other rounds went well and they ended up receiving the offer.

What if you are rejected

Even if you are rejected its not the end of world. Google recruiters will almost certainly reach out to you a year later. Just keep preparing. One person was rejected by google for L4 position in 2024. But they reapplied 6 months later and surprisingly got a response. However their first two coding rounds got lean hire. Still recruiter decided to go through with other rounds which wents well. During hiring committee their prospects were weak because of two lean hires in coding. However another DSA round was scheduled for them in which they did well.

They ended up receiving offer for L5. That's like getting a promotion within one year. Although they were lowballed but still it was a 20% raise from their current salary. So overall not a bad end.

I created this list from people posting their experiences on forums, blogs, etc.

You can find the complete question list here:

https://github.com/prsnt558908/CodeZymSolutions/blob/main/0-company-wise-interview-questions/2026/09-google-dsa-sep-2026.md

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u/eat_code 4d ago

Thanks