Software Engineer · Phone Screen · Coding

Google — Software Engineer ✅ Passed

Level: Intern

Round: Phone Screen · Type: Coding · Difficulty: 5/10 · Duration: 60 min · Interviewer: Unfriendly

Topics: Binary Search, Behavioral Questions

Location: Mountain View, CA

Interview date: 2025-12-28

Summary

I had a technical phone screen. The coding question involved a binary search problem focused on worker efficiency. For behavioral questions, I was asked about ambiguity, tight deadlines, team member conflicts, conflicts with senior engineers, and projects.

Details

The coding question I got was:

Find the minimum number of workers needed to achieve maximum efficiency using binary search.

My approach:

1. I first clarified the constraints and edge cases.
2. Then I implemented binary search to find the optimal number of workers.

Key insights:

• Understanding the problem constraints is important for an efficient solution.
• Binary search can be applied to optimization problems beyond just searching sorted arrays.

Behavioral questions:

• Tell me about a time you faced ambiguity in a project.
• How do you handle tight deadlines?
• Describe a situation where you had a conflict with a team member.
• How do you approach conflicts with senior engineers?
• Tell me about your project.