Google 2025 New Grad Timeline: Top-K Affinity, Heap Frequency, Domain DFS, and Team Match

Role: Software Engineer, New Grad
Result: Entered Team Match
Report time: December 2024
Application: Applied online

Timeline

• October 15: applied
• October 29: recruiter requested transcript
• November 3: received and completed OA
• November 21: group-hangout invitation
• November 27: group preparation hangout
• December 3: scheduling outreach
• December 12: four-round virtual onsite
• December 16: recruiter call and Team Match

Coding round 1: connected-component affinity

A graph contains connected components, and nodes inside a component have different affinity scores. Given a target context, identify the relevant connected component and return the top k affinity nodes.

The candidate used BFS plus sorting, then replaced sorting with a bounded heap after an interviewer hint. A final discussion covered Union-Find as a more efficient way to identify components.

Practice: Top-K Affinity Nodes in a Connected Component

Coding round 2

The second task counted frequencies with a HashMap and used a max-heap to repeatedly pop the highest-frequency item. The source does not preserve what was returned or processed afterward, so no exact link is asserted.

Coding round 3

The third problem involved domains and used DFS with cached pruning. The candidate no longer remembered the actual prompt.

Behavioral round

The candidate felt the behavioral round was only average but completed all coding questions with a few minor typos. Interviewers were friendly and gave useful clarification and hints.