Staff Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Google with 3.4 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 38% positive. To compare, the company-average is 61.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Staff Software Engineer roles take an average of 60 days to get hired, when considering 16 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Google overall takes an average of 38 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Google as a Staff Software Engineer according to 16 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 45%
Phone interview: 23%
Skills test: 14%
Presentation: 9%
Group panel interview: 5%
Drug test: 5%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Google (Seattle, WA)
Interview
Initial contact with recruiter via email; I had been contacted in the past and finally replied to a follow-up. I was able to skip the phone screen due to experience level and internal Google references. I had five on-site hour long interviews and a lunch interview/chat. The recruiter was good at follow-up and keeping me up to date on the status of everything. I highly recommend their "practice" sessions that are offered periodically to those scheduled for on-site interviews.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Most difficult: a question involving deep knowledge of map-reduce infrastructure; my background clearly showed that I did not have experience in that area.
I applied online. I interviewed at Google (Warsaw, Masovia) in Jul 2026
Interview
Very professional interviewer and I'm happy to be part of the process. When my main option fell appart, the recruiter spent time to find an alternative. I was given advices how to perform on the technical interviews to the best of my ability. Overall, I have a feeling I was treated fairly and with respect.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you have a conflict with your manager, what would you do?
Disconnected. Uninterested recruiter. Lack of transparency throughout the process. I passed all interviews and the recruiting team was not able to connect me to any team, months later, asked me to clear some technical interviews again, which I did, and failed to connect me to a team.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- Design a monitoring system
- Traffic related programming questions
- Some others..
I applied online. I interviewed at Google (Warsaw, Masovia) in Jan 2025
Interview
Very long process, algos, system design, and meeting with potential manager. Algos and system design are twice. After you pass 2x algos then you move to 2x system design, then meeting with potential manager.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
On system design I was asked to design a chosen system according to provided requirements.