Like most of the larger tech companies these days, Google doesn't really give you sense for what role you're interviewing for until you really get further into the process. That being said, you could waste time investigating a role that you are either not a great fit for or have little interest in. That being said, I enjoyed talking to most of the researchers there. They have an amazing campus (much like a college campus). Most of the researchers I met with were working on Google voice assistant. I had some experience doing competitive research evaluations of Alexa, etc--so we were able to have some relevant and substantive conversations at times. A few of the researchers were also fairly new to Google, so it was helpful to get their perspectives as new researchers adjusting to life at Google. They were very candid in their responses which I really appreciated. I think overall I hit it off with 2-3 of the 1:1 interviews, flopped some of the Google Hangout interviews and hypotheticals, and did okay during my presentation. I wasn't necessarily expecting an offer based off of that. I thought it could go either way. At the end of the day they told me they wanted someone who had done a lot more A/B evaluative UX testing, which was fair. But back to my first comments--it would have been good to figure this out early on to save myself the travel and process. But it was all good experience I guess. If you are cool doing A/B evaluative testing the process is fine. If you are looking for something broader (ethnographic, foundational, etc) this might not be a good place to check out for UX roles.

TLDR: I've gone through Google's full interview process twice, and I had a poor experience both times. TBH, Google is starting to feel like a bad ex-boyfriend. He is noncommittal, takes days to respond to my messages, and constantly ghosts and zombies me. He keeps promising that if I give it one more chance, we can make it work. Apparently, it takes him 2 to 3 tries to make it stick with past girlfriends. And that's a real Google stat! So, he'll convince me to go through the whole heartache again. I get my hopes up, do my best, and then it's the same old thing...he's borderline rude and stuck-up, and then he pulls the disappearing re-appearing act. In his latest late-night text, he was PLEADING to get back together (i.e.,: interview for a role), and when I responded...radio silence. Recruitment: I tried to tap into my recruiters' expertise but had a really hard time getting prompt responses or feedback from them. In both interview cycles, I worked with my recruiter to select strong case studies for my portfolio interview, but when I showed up at the interview, they thought my case studies didn't showcase my expertise. If I'd just ignored my recruiters (they don't get UX research!) and gone with my gut, I would've selected another stronger case study. Interview process: It was a mixed bag. I spoke with some people who were personable and thoughtful. I also spoke with some people who were downright hostile (read hostile, not awkward) from the moment they walked in the room to that unfortunate moment when I was trapped in the elevator with them. It didn't leave me with a good impression of what it'd be like to work there.