Part 2 of a two-part roundup of thirteen firsthand Google New Grad and L3 interview reports.

Continued candidate experiences

09: Hypothetical BQ, Climbing Stairs, and list-based large-number addition

Report date: December 2, 2025 · Role: Google NG · Location: Not shown · Result: Fail

BQ

One hypothetical asked how the candidate would join a team where everyone was busy and work-life balance was poor.

Technical

1. The first question was LeetCode 70, Climbing Stairs. The source wrote the title as an obfuscated Chinese alias.
2. The second used two lists to represent large numbers and asked the candidate to simulate addition.
3. The source did not state digit order, carry format, or the range of each list element.

10: Early Career R1 with checklist-style BQ and DP

Report date: December 5, 2025 · Role: Google Early Career SDE · Location: Not shown · Result: Pass

1. The process had two stages, with two interviews in each stage, normally back-to-back.
2. R1 included one behavioral and one technical interview.
3. The BQ interviewer followed a list of about five or six questions.
4. Topics included a difficult challenge, conflict with a coworker, and a tight deadline.
5. The technical interview was a dynamic-programming problem at about LeetCode Medium difficulty.
6. The source did not reveal the DP prompt.

11: Nested JSON serialization and four BQ prompts

Report date: December 8, 2025 · Role: Google NG · Location: Not shown · Result: Not disclosed

Coding

1. Serialize a dictionary into a JSON string.
2. Keys are strings. Values may be strings, lists, or nested dictionaries.
3. The example {"a":"b", "c":"d"} should produce the equivalent JSON object string.
4. The source did not state escaping or support for other JSON types.

BQ

Favorite project; working with people from different places; handling stolen credit; and the three most important qualities in a company.

12: Inverse Coin Change and a Course Schedule variant

Report date: December 9, 2025 · Role: Google 26NG · Location: Not shown · Result: Not disclosed

Onsite setup

Two 45-minute interviews were back-to-back. The candidate used a Chromebook and shared whiteboard.

Technical round 1

1. Start from Coin Change counting, where dp[i] is the number of ways to make amount i.
2. Receive the completed dp array and recover the coin set.
3. The candidate needed a hint and worked through examples.
4. The candidate reached the algorithm and finished just in time.
5. A second hint exposed a loop bug.
6. The source did not state uniqueness, duplicate-coin, or no-solution rules.

Technical round 2

A Course Schedule variant was solved quickly, but the exact variant was not preserved.

13: Meeting Rooms II under a wrapper plus five BQ topics

Report date: December 9, 2025 · Role: Google 26NG SWE · Location: Not shown · Result: Not disclosed

Coding

1. The first two parts were simple for-loop tasks, but the prompts were not preserved.
2. The third part was Meeting Rooms II wrapped in a different story.
3. The wrapper, samples, and endpoint rules were not preserved.

BQ

A challenging project, a plan that changed, mentoring someone, conflict with someone, and the top three reasons to join the company.

What repeated often enough to prioritize

Tier 1: Practice the full reasoning path

1. Clarify the input, output, and missing rules.
2. Give a simple correct approach before optimizing.
3. Explain why the next approach is better.
4. Dry run the code and test small edge cases.
5. State what changed after a hint or follow-up.

Tier 2: Prepare these concrete areas

1. Union-Find and DFS for connectivity.
2. Trees, BFS, and lowest common ancestor.
3. Intervals and meeting-room counting.
4. Heaps for k smallest pair sums.
5. HashMaps, frequency ordering, and weighted random selection.
6. Nested-string and JSON parsing.
7. Dynamic programming, including inverse-DP reasoning.
8. API and data-structure design.

Tier 3: Prepare detailed behavioral stories

1. Conflict and disagreement.
2. Helping a teammate.
3. Working with a senior teammate or manager.
4. Adapting to change.
5. Protecting different user groups.
6. Multitasking, setbacks, and personal impact.

There’s still sooooo much more to do hiahiahia, I’ll be backkk! Expect having 10+ parts