Google New Grad VO R1: Group Shift-Equivalent Strings and BQ

Role: Software Engineer, New Grad
Result: Final outcome not disclosed
Report time: April 2026

The candidate completed two R1 interviews: one coding session and one behavioral session.

Coding: group strings by shift distance

Given a list of strings, group strings that have the same relative letter-distance pattern.

Examples:

• aaa and zzz belong together.
• abc and bcd belong together.

The pattern should remain the same when every character is shifted by the same amount around the alphabet.

The candidate initially used several if/else cases. The interviewer suggested using modulo arithmetic, which reduced the comparison logic to a much smaller expression. There was no broader follow-up.

Practice: Group Shift-Equivalent Strings

Behavioral interview

Questions included:

• What do you do when priorities keep changing?
• How could you do better?
• How would you handle conflict with a senior coworker?
• How do you communicate with your team?

The interviewer left time for the candidate's questions at the end.