CONTEXT: I had been contacted by different Google recruiters over the past few years (and had been referred internally but I didnt know about that) and I had kept asking them to contact me later. FIRST CONTACT: I was then again contacted first for an S.R.E position. The recruiter took a mini 5-10 interview about time complexities and some Linux systems questions which they expected people to be well versed in. The recruiter was a little misleading about what the position was about and made it sound alot closer to S.W.E than it actually is. I did my research spoke with people who interviewed for SRE. I then insisted that I wanted to interview for SWE. The recruiter tried hard to convince me to apply for SRE but my heart was not in it. EVENTUAL CONTACT: After 1-2 conversations with the recruiter, I was then handed over to another recruiter for SWE. I had multiple conversations so that they can ascertain which team should interview me and what should be a good fit. They really do try to set you up for success, I can assure you that much. They were unable to initially be precise about which team I would be a fit for. So they suggested that I atleast do the phone interview (which would be reaosonably generic) and then that would give them some clues. PHONE INTERVIEW STAGE: I gave the phone interview and next day got an email that they want to move forward. I then spoke with a different recruiter who was supposed to handle my case. I again had some clarifying conversations with her about my strengths and interests and made sure that my onsite interview would be something that I expected it to be. This recruiter was fantastic and very detail oriented. I had limited time because I had 2 existing offers whose deadlines were approaching. They scheduled my interview on a day of my choosing. ONSITE INTERVIEW STAGE: The onsite interview went well. The interviewers were friendly and polite. Some young, some slightly older. They were excited to be a part of Google. I had a great time talking and solving questions. The interview questions were not very difficult. I concentrated alot on code organization, cleanliness and correctness. Debugging my code in the interviews and convincing myself and the interviewer of the absolute correctness was very important. If you are comfortable with recursion, Dynamic programming, Arrays, Trees etc that should be fine. I dont think they really wanted to test knowledge of advanced concepts. They concentrated more on basic fundamentals, good solutions, clean & correct code. There were 5 technical interviews and 1 lunch interview. The lunch interview was not technical. It was me who was asking the constant questions in that time. POST INTERVIEW STAGE: Since I was on a tight timeline, things moved at LIGHTNING SPEED. I couldnt imagine that it was possible for this to be done so soon. On the SAME DAY of my interview, I got a positive response and my packet for the Hiring Committee was being prepared. They checked out my references the NEXT day and by nightfall the next day, I knew I was approved by the hiring commitee. OFFER PHASE: The verbal offer was given 2 days later. 2 days of negotiation. I was given the final written letter basically within a week of my interview which I signed. Over all: The recruiter was diligent and FAST. I couldnt keep up, it was that quick. I was very lucky I would say to work with the right people. I made sure i myself was prompt at every stage.