Google is one of the most sought-after software companies to work at. As a company, Google encourages their engineers to continuously evolve, innovate, and change the way billions of users connect and explore information. Front-end engineers are primarily responsible for building user interfaces for web or mobile applications.
They work closely with back-end engineers and are an important part of any web development team. Front-end engineers are essentially software engineers, so the interview process will contain coding, design, and behavioral elements, along with domain-specific questions on front-end development. This article will take you through the interview process for a Front-End Engineer at Google.
If you are preparing for a tech interview, check out our interview questions page and salary negotiation ebook to get interview-ready! Also, read Google Interview Questions and How hard it is to get a job at Google for specific insights and guidance on Google tech interviews.
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In this article, we’ll discuss the following::
- Google Front-End Engineer interview process
- Google Front-End Engineer interview questions
- Tips to crack Google’s Front-End Engineer Interview
- How to prepare for the Google Front-End Engineer interview
Google Front-End Engineer Interview Process
The front-end engineer interview process at Google takes place over three main rounds. They are:
The Initial Phone Screen With a Recruiter
This round involves speaking to a recruiter about your skills and experience. The recruiter will get in touch with you after you apply for the role via Google’s career page or LinkedIn.
Make sure your LinkedIn profile has the right keywords distributed optimally to get located by search algorithms. If your skills and level of experience are in line with the requirements of the role, you’ll be invited to the technical phone screen round.
The Technical Phone Screen Interview
This round will essentially test your basic approach to problem-solving. A hiring manager recruiting for front-end development will conduct this interview and ask you to solve a coding problem via a shared document. The technical phone screen usually happens remotely. You’ll first be asked to Brute Force the solution and then be asked to write code in a document. The hiring manager can tweak the problem statement to understand how you’d approach the problem given the new set of conditions.
For the technical phone screen round, make sure you pick a programming language with which you’re comfortable, preferably Python, Java, or C++ (an Object-Oriented Programming Language). You can also be asked a few basic questions on front-end development, mostly theoretical questions.
The On-site Interview
The on-site interview is the final test of your technical abilities. The on-site comprises four major rounds of interview:
The Coding Round
The coding round will typically involve solving one or two problems around algorithms and core data structures. Questions will mostly be around arrays, strings, trees, graphs, or dynamic programming. Your ability to articulate complex solution patterns is tested in this round.
Recommended Reading: Cracking the Coding Interview
The Systems Design Round
In this round, you’ll be asked to design an arbitrary system based on a set of parameters. Your understanding of scalable systems and your ability to develop systems with low latency is evaluated in this round.
Recommended Reading: System Design Interview Preparation Tips
The Behavioral Round
This round essentially tests your attitude and behavioral traits. You’ll be asked questions around workplace situations, and recruiters will evaluate your behavioral tendencies. Questions will mostly be around challenging past projects you’ve worked on, difficult situations with your previous colleagues/managers, and work-life balance.
Recommended Reading: Behavioral Interview Questions for Software Developers
The Domain Round
During this round, hiring managers will specifically evaluate your front-end development skills. You can mostly expect theoretical and situational questions in the domain round.
Recommended Reading: Google Front-End Engineer Interview Prep
Google Front-End Engineer Interview Questions
Interview questions asked at Google’s Front-End Developer interview typically fall under the following categories:
- Coding interview questions: They involve solving questions on core data structures and algorithms.
- Systems design questions: They involve designing an arbitrary system with the given specifications.
- Behavioral questions: They involve questions around workplace conduct, work-life balance, and Google’s culture at large.
- Questions around front-end development: These are questions specific to the domain. Below are some sample questions:
1. How do you ensure that your website design is user-friendly?
2. How do you make the structure of CSS and JavaScript easy for developers to comprehend?
3. Tell us what you know about CSS float.
4. What is Saas?
5. Explain the differences between div and span functions.
Visit the Interview Kickstart Problems Page to access a huge list of commonly asked coding problems with solutions.
Also, check out our comprehensive Google Interview Guide and Google Interview Questions page to get specific insights on prepping for Google’s technical interviews.
Tips to Crack Google’s Front-End Engineer Interview
With the tips mentioned below, you can position yourself strongly to ace Google’s technical interview:
Create a portfolio of your work
A neat portfolio of your work can give recruiters a good idea of your experience, skills, and accomplishments. Google maintains a very high hiring bar, so a good portfolio can tip the odds in your favor.
Practice coding on a whiteboard
Whiteboard coding is an important element of tech interviews at Google. Hiring managers evaluate your problem-solving abilities and general approach to finding problem solutions at length by asking you to code on a whiteboard. If you don’t practice, significant gaps may emerge between your ability to think and articulate. Writing clean code on a whiteboard through extensive practice can definitely put you ahead of the competition.
Practice mock interviews
Mock interviews can help you discover gaps in your performance. Practicing with the right professionals is extremely important. If you practice with people who can’t give you the right feedback, you’d be shooting blindly while preparing, not knowing what areas need improvement.
As a rule of thumb, practice at least 6 to 8 mocks if you want to give yourself a good chance at the Google interview.
Give yourself enough time to prepare
A lot of experienced engineers fail to acknowledge the importance of devoting adequate time for prep. You need to practice at least 100 coding problems to understand solution patterns and apply them to future problems that you solve. Covering the important aspects in core data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems takes a minimum of 8 to 10 weeks. So ensure that you give yourself enough time to prepare for the interview.
How to Prepare for the Google Front-End Engineering Interview
Preparing for front-end developer interviews takes time, as the topics to cover are pretty vast. Google has extremely high hiring standards, with only a meager 1% to 2% of applicants landing an offer. Hence, in order to give yourself the best chance at cracking the interview, you need to have an exhaustive and smart prep strategy in place.
Getting help with your prep by finding a fitting resource or enrolling for a technical interview course is a great idea if you’re committed to cracking the interview and landing that coveted offer. We offer a first-of-its-kind, domain-specific tech interview prep program designed specifically for Front-end Engineers. Click here to learn more about the program.
With Interview Kickstart, you get access to instructors who are hiring managers and technical leads at Google. You get to practice mock interviews with highly qualified professionals who can give you the right feedback.
Here’s what you can expect after enrolling for Interview Kickstart’s course:
- An exhaustive curriculum that covers all aspects of technical interview prep
- Access to a wide network of alums who’ve landed offers at the biggest tech companies
- A pay hike upwards of $40,000 per annum
- Multiple offers from FAANG and tier-1 companies
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