Google New Grad Phone Screen: Climbing Stairs, Big-Number Addition, and BQ

Role: Software Engineer, New Grad
Result: Rejected
Report time: December 2025
Application: Applied online

Behavioral interview

The behavioral questions were hypothetical. One example asked how the candidate would join a team when everyone was overloaded and the team's work-life balance was poor.

Technical interview 1

The first problem was LeetCode 70, Climbing Stairs. The original report used an obfuscated Chinese name, which was later confirmed to refer to this problem.

Practice: Climbing Stairs

Technical interview 2

Add two large numbers represented as lists and return their sum as a list.

The source did not preserve the digit order, carry format, or range of each list element.

Practice: Add Large Numbers Represented as Lists