Software Development Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Google with 3.8 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 77% positive. To compare, the company-average is 74.1% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Development Engineer roles take an average of 38 days to get hired, when considering 30 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Google overall takes an average of 30 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Google as a Software Development Engineer according to 30 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 21%
Phone interview: 17%
Skills test: 15%
IQ intelligence test: 12%
Presentation: 12%
Background check: 8%
Personality test: 6%
Group panel interview: 5%
Other: 3%
Drug test: 2%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Cambridge, MA) in Nov 2012
Interview
I was contacted by a recruiter from Google over a year ago when I wasn't in the job market. This year, when I entered the job market, I got back in touch with him, and he set things up for me.
Since I work right next to the Google office in Cambridge, they skipped phone interviews and I was invited for an onsite interview directly. There were five technical interviews that covered coding, algorithm design and analysis, software design, and system design
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
My most difficult question was on system design. I have been in academia until now, and so thinking about enterprise-style system-design and scalability issues was very difficult for me.
The interviewer was very nice, one interviewer didn't show up so I rescheduled it. When I didn't come up with the best solution, the interveiwer was very patient and give me hint as many as possible
1 screening round + 3 onsite round
All rounds were focused on DSA that included topics like strings, linked list, heap and dynamic programming. Screening round had 2 questions on qualifying which I was eligible for onsite and Googliness rounds. The whole process took nearlying 2.5 months
I applied in-person. I interviewed at Google (Bengaluru) in Apr 2026
Interview
Very competitive process which requires hard work and good preparation. DSA questions and real life problems divided into 4-5 rounds of interview including HR, Technical, Hiring manager rounds. Onsite interviews are going on