Google 2026 New Grad OA: Moving Tokens and Largest Common-Digit Group

Role: Software Engineer, New Grad
Result: Passed the OA
Report time: December 2025

The assessment contained two questions in 90 minutes. The platform provided only two basic test cases for each question and allowed the candidate to add their own tests. No hidden tests were visible.

Question 1: moving tokens and coins

A one-dimensional board string contains:

• . for empty cells
• T for tokens
• C for coins

A move chooses any token and moves it exactly three cells to the right. Tokens may move repeatedly but cannot land on another token. A coin is collected only when a token lands on its cell; coins passed over are not collected, and each coin can be collected once.

Return the maximum number of coins that can be collected. The board length is at most 100.

Practice: Maximum Coins With Moving Tokens

Question 2: largest common-digit group

Given two-digit integers, choose the largest group in which every selected number contains at least one shared digit.

For example, 11, 21, 31, 41, 16, 17, 18 form a group of seven because every number contains digit 1.

Practice: Maximum Elements With a Common Digit

The candidate described the OA as friendly and moderate rather than difficult.