Google L4 Software Engineer Interview Experience | Rejected

Hello everyone,

I recently interviewed for the Software Engineer (L4) role at Google India, but unfortunately, I did not clear the interview process. I wanted to share my experience and get feedback from people who may have faced similar situations.

I connected with a recruiter for the L4 SWE position and completed the GHA and coding assessment. After getting shortlisted, I attended two virtual interview rounds: one technical round and one Googliness round.

Although I was able to solve the first part of the technical question, I struggled with the follow-up question and one of the behavioural questions. I want to understand where I went wrong and how I can improve before my next attempt.

• Role: Software Engineer (L4)

• Location: India

• Interview Rounds: 2

• Format: Virtual

• Final Result: Rejected

Round 1: Technical Interview

My technical interview involved a problem based on a satellite image represented as an (N * M) grid.

The grid contained two types of cells:

• X represented land or islands.

• . represented water.

A coordinate ((r, c)) was also provided as part of the problem.

Finding the Island Using BFS

For the first part, I was asked to solve a problem similar to the classic island-counting problem.

I proposed using Breadth-First Search (BFS) to traverse the grid and explore the connected land cells. The interviewer agreed with my approach and asked me to implement the solution.

I completed the implementation and explained my approach. I felt that this part went well.

Identifying Lakes Enclosed by Islands

The follow-up question was about identifying or counting lakes enclosed by islands.

I found this part difficult because I could not fully understand the exact requirements. I asked the interviewer for clarification multiple times, but I still struggled to understand what was expected.

Based on my understanding, I suggested checking for lakes while traversing the islands using BFS.

The interviewer said that my approach could also work but mentioned that I did not need to implement the code. We then moved to the question-and-answer portion of the interview.

After the interview, I thought the expected solution might have involved a boundary-based flood-fill approach, but I am still not entirely sure whether that was what the interviewer wanted.

I believe my main difficulty was understanding the follow-up question correctly and identifying the expected approach before proceeding with the solution.

Round 2: Googliness Interview

My second round focused on behavioural questions, with follow-up questions based on my responses.

Most of the questions were standard behavioural questions, but I struggled with one in particular:

"If a project is unclear or there is ambiguity, how would you handle it?"

I could not organise my thoughts properly and struggled to give a structured answer. I stumbled over my words and started discussing things that did not directly address the question.

Looking back, I feel I could have communicated my approach much more clearly.

A better way for me to approach this situation would have been to explain how I would identify the unclear requirements, ask relevant questions, discuss possible solutions with my team, break the project into smaller tasks, and communicate any assumptions or risks before moving forward.

I realised that I need to work on expressing my thoughts clearly and confidently during behavioural interviews, especially when answering questions about teamwork, ownership, and handling ambiguity.

Final Result and Recruiter Feedback

Unfortunately, I received a rejection after completing both interview rounds.

When I spoke with the recruiter, I was told that I needed to strengthen my technical concepts and practise more coding problems.

I was confused by this feedback because the interviewer had accepted my BFS approach and implementation for the first part of the technical question.

However, I understand that solving one part correctly does not necessarily mean that my overall performance met Google's expectations for the L4 role.

I also struggled with the follow-up question and could have communicated my thoughts better during the Googliness round. These areas may have contributed to the final decision, although I do not know the exact reasons behind the rejection.

Final Thoughts

Although I am disappointed with the result, I want to use this experience to identify my weaknesses and improve.

I plan to focus on data structures and algorithms, practise more grid and graph problems, improve my understanding of flood-fill techniques, and work on explaining my reasoning more clearly. I also want to practise behavioural questions so that I can structure my answers better and communicate with more confidence.

I would genuinely appreciate honest feedback and suggestions that could help me perform better in my next interview.

Thanks for reading!