Google PhD New Grad R1: Applied DFS/BFS Round and Behavioral Questions

Role: Software Engineer, PhD New Grad
Result: Final outcome not disclosed
Report time: December 2025

Coding interview

The candidate received an applied problem whose solution used standard DFS or BFS with a set. Understanding the business wrapper took some time, but the underlying algorithm felt like an easier LeetCode Medium problem.

The source does not preserve the input model, graph or state representation, traversal objective, or required output. Those are necessary to identify the question, so no exact practice link is asserted.

Behavioral interview

Questions included:

• Resolving a conflict
• Handling several deadlines at once
• A time personal integrity was tested
• Why Google?
• Learning something new during a task and changing the approach
• Responding when another person takes credit

The candidate completed the interviews on the Monday of the report week. No later result or technical follow-up was recorded.