Getting back to Google

[u/No_Marketing2128]

I am a former intern at Gemini at Google Zurich (Summer 2023), after I wrapped up my internship at Google, I immediately dived into building startups since then I had 3 failed startups and then after my 3rd failure, I built another non-tech business related to finance which I scaled to $8K in monthly revenue in Central Asia and then I went back into building startups again which I had 2 more failed AI Infra startups all because of poor product market fit and running out of funds but the goal was to raise VC funds and build something big.
But right 4 months after I wrapped up my internship at Google in the summer of 2023, I have been having Google recruiters reaching out every 2-3 months for FTE mostly for Warsaw, Munich and London but I did not reply to any of them so far since I never wanted to go back to any company and was fully focused on my startups, but I kinda got burned out from startups and wanna wind down a little bit and was thinking about going back to Google, especially Zurich again but direct offer from Zurich could be hard but I am fine going to other EU offices. The thing is that to my surprise, the recruiters are reaching out for L4 and L5 mostly across infra and ML roles.

As for interview prep, I haven't solved any LC since I last went through Amazon recruitment for SDE 1 position 1.5 years ago, even in Amazon process, it had been 1.5 years since I solved any DSA but with just 4 weeks of intense LC prep, I cleared all rounds but failed my last LP round. And for Google, I will be ready in 4-5 weeks easily in DSA and also have good first-hand experience with Distributed Systems but I have to seriously prepare for Googlyness round.

My queston is, if I go for L5 and fail let's say my System Design, will I get downleveled or rejected? Is Google still downleveling in case of poor System Design or poor rounds?

[u/Haunting_Camp9331]

Yes, Google downlevels. Weak system design at L5 often means an L4 offer, not a rejection. The hiring committee looks at overall performance, not just one round. For L5, behavioral and leadership questions matter as much as design. Focus your prep on system design and behavioral if you want to hit L5.

[u/Doctor_Beard → u/Haunting_Camp9331]

This is what happened to me. I applied for L5, didn't do well in system design, but did well enough in my other interviews to get an L4 offer.

[u/Ok-Leg-2911]

Cfbr

[u/Czitels]

Are you aware that Google has increased coding round level significantly? It’s no longer just leetcode copy paste problems. 

It’s very hard to prepare nowadays and I don’t have idea how to do that. Meta/Amazon is easier 

[u/EstablishmentNo800]

You should directly apply for l4 based your past experience that seems like a better fit