Google 2026 New Grad Onsite: Gold-Chain Splits and Equal-Endpoint Subarrays

Role: Software Engineer, New Grad
Result: Entered Team Match and accepted an assigned team
Onsite date: April 2, 2026
Location: Mountain View

The candidate flew from the central United States to Mountain View for R2 and completed two coding interviews.

Coding 1: split a gold chain after removing one link

An integer array represents the weights of links in a gold chain. Remove exactly one element, reconnect the remaining elements without changing their order, and split the resulting array into two contiguous sections with equal sums.

Return whether any valid method exists.

Examples:

• [1, 5, 3, 4]: remove 5, producing [1, 3, 4]; split as [1, 3] and [4], so the answer is true.
• [1, 3, 4]: removing any element leaves no equal contiguous split, so the answer is false.

The follow-up asked for every possible removal-and-split method. The candidate said the intended target was O(n).

Practice: Gold Chain Equal Splits After Removing One Link

Coding 2: maximum subarray with equal endpoints

Given an array that may contain positive and negative values, find indices i <= j such that a[i] == a[j] and the sum from i through j is maximized. Return the maximizing pair [i, j].

The follow-up required strict O(1) auxiliary space and allowed higher time complexity. The interviewer asked whether anything could be slightly faster than brute force, but the candidate ran out of time before completing that version.

Practice: Maximum Subarray Sum With Equal Endpoints

Timeline after the onsite

1. April 9: recruiter scheduled a visa-check call.
2. April 15: completed the rescheduled visa check and was told final feedback would follow.
3. April 21: learned they had entered Team Match.
4. May 13: was assigned directly to a team without a Team Match call and accepted it.
5. May 14: completed a welcome call with the manager.

The onsite used a provided Chromebook and the same shared document style as R1 rather than marker-only whiteboard coding.