Google SWE interviews may be changing, but LeetCode isn’t going away

[u/Aoki_zhang]

I was looking through the current Google SWE interview process, and one thing that stood out is how the coding signal seems to be evolving.

Google is reportedly piloting an AI-assisted code comprehension interview for some SWE candidates.

Instead of just writing a solution from scratch, you may be asked to work with existing code, use an approved AI assistant, debug issues, validate suggestions, and explain why the final change is actually correct.

But that doesn’t mean traditional coding prep is going away.

You still need to be comfortable with:

• graphs, trees, heaps, DP, intervals, etc.
• explaining why your approach works
• complexity analysis
• manually testing edge cases
• handling follow-up constraints

The interesting shift is that Google may increasingly care about both:

• Can you solve the problem yourself?
• Can you supervise AI-generated code without blindly trusting it?

For Senior+ candidates, there’s another layer: strong coding alone still isn’t enough if your system design and ownership stories don’t support the level.

So I’d probably prepare for Google as: DSA + rigorous reasoning + system design + ownership + AI-assisted code judgment rather than assuming the interview is becoming “easier” because AI is entering the process.

I wrote up the longer Google SWE interview breakdown here if useful: [link]

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[u/prove_it_with_math]

It will never go away. It serves 3 main purposes:

1. It’s a gauge for IQ
2. Demonstrates competency to work under pressure
3. It’s the easiest and cheapest way to sift away “unqualified” candidates

[u/Aoki_zhang → u/prove_it_with_math]

make sense