15 Mind Bending Interview Questions by Google

They seek smart work instead of hard work…

Google is one of the most sought after multi-national technology companies in the world. It is known for providing a flexible work life to its employees. The work culture of google is very fun filled and interesting. The interview process of this multi billionaire company is very rigid, which enables them to choose the best minds across the world.

To get such a lucrative job at google, one has to go through a good round of grilling interview sessions that access every skill of the interviewee. Even getting shortlisted for a google interview is considered as a big achievement among the applicants. The prospective applicants are asked mind bending questions that require lateral thinking. They seek answers that are out of the box and rare. The questions are much beyond the usual. To answer those puzzling questions one needs to keep on exercising his or her brain regularly by solving puzzles. By asking such difficult questions, the interviewer tests the analytical and stress management skills of the interviewee.

Algorithms, Coding and Networking are the major areas on which google interviews are based on for a software engineer. Let us go through few mind bending questions asked by google to recruit its engineers while testing their all-round potentials:

• Write an algorithm for integer multiplication.
• Merge two sorted linked lists.
• Given a set of intervals (time in seconds). Find the set of intervals that overlap.
• If we have a list of n nodes, what are the maximum number of edges there can be for a directed acyclic graph?
• What is the difference between finally, final and finalize in Java?
• Remove duplicate lines from a large text.
• Given a string, find the minimum window containing a given set of characters.
• How many balloons fit inside of San Francisco?
• What is the sticky bit and why is it used?
• Given a list of integers that fall within a known short but unknown range of values, how to find the median value?
• Given a set of intervals, find the interval which has the maximum number of intersections.
• Array of 100 integers from 1 to 100, shuffled. One integer is taken out, find that integer.
• Judge whether a Sudoku solution is right or not.
• Given the daily values of a stock, find how you can lose the most with one buy-sell trading.
• Find an unbiased decision from a biased coin.

Still scratching your head! Of course, these are only a list of few questions that are asked in the google interview. The rest that have not been mentioned might be trickier than them. Once you go through the set of questions you realize Google’s penchant for grilling its applicants with such mind bending and undecipherable questions that seem impossible.

This is a Guest Post by Computer Hub