Google 2026 New Grad R1: Increasing Sequence With One Replacement and BQ

Role: Software Engineer, New Grad
Result: Passed R1
Report time: January 2026

Coding interview

The base task asked for the longest increasing “subarray.” The follow-up allowed replacing one element and asked how the solution should change.

The candidate became nervous, implemented an inefficient solution, and spent the remaining time discussing optimizations and the complexity of several approaches.

A commenter asked whether the sequence had to be contiguous or whether this was the non-contiguous Longest Increasing Subsequence problem. The candidate did not answer. The replacement domain and exact objective are also missing, so no exact practice link is asserted.

Behavioral interview

Questions included:

• A time the candidate stepped up to support the team
• What they liked most and least about a previous manager
• How they would handle someone who does not fit well with the team
• How they would respond when someone asks to move their request or ticket ahead of others

The candidate felt the behavioral round went well and received the R1 pass email that evening.