My experience was relatively positive. I was contacted by a Google recruiter a bit more than a year ago, as I was starting to look for a new job. First had a

My experience was relatively positive. I was contacted by a Google recruiter a bit more than a year ago, as I was starting to look for a new job. First had a phone call with an HR, which explained the whole process and asked me to grade myself on various skills. I was a bit surprised they explicitly told me to train on leetcode or similar (with a link and everything), since it seems to kinda defeat the point, but that seems par for the course. Biggest surprise was how vague the job description was (software engineer), and that you have no idea what you will do. I get it, from the pov of Google, they want generally competent people that can easily switch to another role. It's hard to get motivated though; I personally really care about what I am working on (more than the technologies themselves), and the fact I might do all of this just to get assigned to something I do not want to do was a big turn off. I ended up studying for about 8 hours before the phone screen interview. The person doing the interview was really nice and competent. I ended with a review of "great communicator but a bit slow", so the HR wanted me to do another round to tip the balance one way or another. They told me to use whatever time I wanted to study; all around the pace was rather slow, but you could set your own timing, which is great when you're just looking at options, but probably not ideal if you need a job quickly. Second interview went the same as I had barely studied more. I am no genius, and there's no getting around the fact that I need to put in the hours if I want to succeed. I was turned down as expected, though the HR really wanted me to study hard and try again in 6 months. I found another job at a really nice place a few months later, so that was the end of it. Ultimately, I felt the process was pretty decent and streamlined all around, though quite time-demanding, it just wasn't for me. Simply working at Google generally, or the salary/reputation weren't enough to motivate me to put the effort needed.