Google 2026 New Grad NYC Onsite: Dynamic Kth Largest and Nested Decode

Role: Software Engineer, New Grad
Result: Not disclosed
Report time: February 2026
Location: New York City
Application: Applied online

Technical interview 1

Design a class supporting:

• insert(num: int)
• findlargest(k: int)

Duplicates count separately, and k is zero-indexed. After inserting 3, 3, 2:

• findlargest(0) = 3
• findlargest(1) = 3
• findlargest(2) = 2

The interviewer asked the candidate to make findlargest as fast as possible.

Practice: Dynamic Kth Largest Element

Technical interview 2

Decode strings where a parenthesized section is followed by a repetition count in braces.

Examples:

• a(abc){3} becomes aabcabcabc.
• The candidate corrected the nested example in a follow-up comment: a(b(c){2}){3}d becomes abccbccbccd.

The input does not contain mismatched parentheses. A { always follows a closing parenthesis, and repetition counts range from 2 to 99.

Practice: Decode a Nested Repetition String