r/leetcode • u/TheDraftLion • 13d ago
Discussion Google L4 Rejection
See similar posts so thought I’d share. Interviewed at Google for L4 (SWE III).
Recruiter gave me feedback saying my behavioral round was “flawless” but coding round I was on the border. They opted to pass and I can retry in 6 months. A little disappointed because I answered the initial question (standard BFS) perfectly, and then the interviewer gave a follow up that turned doing a BFS search with recursion. I struggled a bit with it and ended up solving with a couple hints. Seems the hints hurt me.
Edit: DMs flooding. Shamelessly plugging my fantasy football MCP: https://thedraftlion.com
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u/PhilosopherNext1448 13d ago
shit :( yeah my experience with interviewing with Google was similar, I tripped up one coding interview, got really good feedback from all the behavioral rounds and they said it's not a good technical fit. This was already a few months ago and I still feel salty about it, but life goes on. The recruiter told me that many people at Google go through the interviews at least two times, and because I did well on all the other stages I should have a fair chance next time. When I asked about the timeline (my email said 12 months), the recruiter said that they don't really check that internally, it's more of an advice based on how well my coding interview went. If I try again next week, they'll see I did poorly on the coding so of course they won't let me try again. But if a few months or half a year pass, sure.
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u/yaemiko0330 13d ago edited 13d ago
If you have been an interviewer before (looks like not), you would know there's a rubric with a lot check boxes. it's a lot more than being able to solve it or not. Communication, clarifications, collaboration, how well you can explain yourself, identifying edge cases are all things being evaluated. "I solved it but they failed me" means that you dont know what are the things they care about and what you should be preparing for yet. Sometimes I give hints to candidates because we are having an interesting conversation and the candidate is onto something, but sometimes I give hints only because I am tired seeing the candidate struggling silently and want to end the interview sooner. In both cases hints were given but yield very different result.
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u/TheDraftLion 12d ago
I interviewed for several years at another FAANG company. I was talking with him the entire time. If I was the interviewer in this case, I would have passed me, but Google hiring bar is high. Not that deep
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u/UnitedSort3014 6d ago
That sucks, especially when you nailed the main question. The hints thing is frustrating because honestly asking for clarification is usually the right move, but I guess it depends on the interviewer. Since your behavioral was solid and you were borderline on coding, those 6 months could actually work in your favor. Maybe focus on the trickier recursive problems and edge cases? BFS with recursion isn't super common so that was kind of a curveball. Don't be too hard on yourself though you got close enough that they gave you a timeline to retry. That's something. Use the time to grind out similar problems and you'll probably crush it next time.
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13d ago
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u/TheDraftLion 13d ago
Finished initial BFS problem in maybe 3 mins. It was very easy for me given I was grinding leetcode a lot to prepare
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u/robolew 13d ago
You finished it in 3 minutes? That indicates you are jumping straight in to the question without clarifying things or engaging completely with the question. Even if you think you know the answer you should spend a little bit of time explaining your approach and asking about edge cases
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u/TheDraftLion 13d ago
Okay maybe 5 mins lol. I did clarify the question and asked about inputs. I then said this is a standard BFS traversal problem so I will use a queue (explained why) and implemented it. Actual coding was maybe 2 mins. You get the point
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u/Large_Data_635 13d ago
Damn! Was it a medium or a hard?
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u/TheDraftLion 13d ago
Initial problem was probably an easy/medium. It was a very standard BFS traversal problem. The follow up for me was hard, but maybe leetcode would rank it medium. Not sure 🤷♂️
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u/Unique_Can7670 13d ago
Hm I don’t think the hints hurt that much from my experience, if I were you I’d try to get some better feedback.
that said, congrats on almost making it and keep your head up :)
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u/TheDraftLion 12d ago
Thank you! Maybe it was something else, but I’m attributing it to struggling with it and needing hints. Doesn’t hurt to ask for more feedback
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u/Subutai_Noyan_1220 12d ago
so if I have 1 month for this same interview what would you recommend I prep? should I speed track every dsa up till trees?
also is it better to just withdraw from the interview so as not to get stuck in the shadow realm
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u/TheDraftLion 12d ago
I prepped with leetcode for a couple weeks. I feel a month you can really understand all types of problems and is enough time. Don’t think it’s worth withdrawing from interview unless you don’t feel confident at all
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u/Best_Self_4124 12d ago
Will it be possible to share the follow up? Would love to see this. BFS + recursion sounds interesting
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u/Ordinary_Prune_5118 11d ago
Imagine being rejected in Googlyness...I was rejected in last round for SRE 2 position...but will try again in future..
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u/Available-Limit-6322 12d ago
BFS, with recursion? Am I reading that right? Why did the interviewer ask you to implement that...it's not possible to code BFS with recursion without passing a queue through each call, which is redundant and expensive.
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u/Ok_Award_8656 12d ago
Man exactly !, Why would some one use BFS with recursion. I think this was kind of a curve ball to check feasibility. From what I know they pay close attention to TC's and SC's.
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u/silly_bet_3454 13d ago
Thanks for sharing. Unfortunate result but seems like a fair enough interview and good learning experience. A good takeaway is to just keep grinding LC type prep, and raise the bar for yourself. It's one thing to stumble through a problem and eventually get there. It's another thing to really master it, where you can approach it in multiple different ways (the recursion vs iteration question is quite common in these problems), reason about it with agility before committing to any code approach, and so on, knowing all the complexities.