Google L3 Offer - Germany: My Journey to Landing the Role

I can hardly believe it, but I finally received an offer from Google! This has been a long journey filled with anticipation, preparation, and excitement. In this post, I’ll share the entire process, the interview experience, and the compensation package I received.

The Timeline of My Interview Process

• Mid-August: I received a call from the recruiter.
• Mid-September: I completed the phone screen interview.
• End of October: I participated in the onsite interviews.
• 2nd Week of November: I received positive feedback from the onsite interviews and the team manager.
• Last Week of November: I got the hiring committee (HC) approval and the official offer.

I took my time to prepare thoroughly for the interviews. I requested one month to prepare for the phone screen and another month for the onsite interviews.

My Interview Experience

Phone Screen

The phone screen consisted of an easy to medium-level question focused on sorting and maps. It was a good warm-up for the more challenging interviews to come.

Onsite Interviews

1. Onsite 1: I faced a backtracking question related to strings with cycle detection. Fortunately, there were no follow-up questions, which helped me stay focused on solving the problem.

2. Onsite 2: The second interview was also a backtracking question, but this time it involved maps. This question included multiple follow-ups, and I found it to be similar to depth-first search (DFS) with memoization and cycle detection.

3. Onsite 3: The last interview was centered around a dynamic programming (DP) question, which also included one follow-up. The question was reminiscent of the classic “take or not take” problem in DP.

4. General & Leadership (G&L): This portion of the interview consisted of standard behavioral questions that were a bit tricky, but I managed to navigate them well.

Compensation Package

Initial Offer

• Base Salary: 78k EUR
• Bonus: 15% of base salary
• Stocks: 67k USD (distributed over four years as 38%, 32%, 20%, and 10%)
• Relocation Support: Although no specific amount was mentioned, there was some support from a partner company.

Total Compensation for the First Year: 113k EUR

After Negotiation

After some discussions, I was able to negotiate the following:

• Base Salary: 80k EUR
• Bonus: 15% of base salary
• Stocks: 81k USD (with the same distribution)
• Sign-on Bonus: 8k EUR
• Relocation Support: Similar to before, with assistance from a partner company.

Total Compensation for the First Year: 128k EUR

Given that I did not have a competing offer that matched this compensation, I decided to accept the offer from Google.

Final Thoughts

This journey has been both challenging and rewarding. The preparation, the interviews, and finally receiving this offer have been significant milestones in my career. If you’re going through a similar process, my advice is to take your preparation seriously, practice coding problems, and be ready to engage in deep technical discussions.

Thank you for reading, and I hope this post helps others on their path to landing their dream job!

Top Comments:

• Commenter 1: Congratulations! What resources did you use to prepare for the interviews?
• Commenter 2: Amazing journey! Was there anything you found particularly challenging during the process?
• Commenter 3: Great insights! How did you approach the behavioral questions?