I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Mar 2011
Interview
I had an introduction through a friend. I then had a series of phone interviews. Each interviewer asked a different set of questions. Also asked to describe a Google product that I used frequently and to name 5 things I would change about it. Be sure to have pen and paper handy as well as a calculator.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Airports are inefficient. How would you improve them?
Very self-driven, first of multiple rounds, where I had to take the initiative to arrive at the problem, constraints, approach, solutions, tradeoffs and reasoning behind it in a matter of 30 minutes.
You would have to do a hiring assessment first, then a recruiter screening follows. First round interview with the hiring manager. Majorly product sense and product improvement. The questions were not direct though.
Overall a lot of steps to the interview process. Talked to different people and had opportunities to ask questions. Many different stages which made it a lengthy process overall. Wasn't too bad.
