Google Software Engineer Intern, PhD interview questions
based on 2 ratings - Updated Jan 15, 2026
Difficultinterview difficulty
Very positiveinterview experience
How others got an interview
100%
Applied online
Applied online
Interview search
2 interviews
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Software Engineer Intern, PhD applicants have rated the interview process at Google with 3.5 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 50% positive. To compare, the company-average is 61.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer Intern, PhD roles take an average of 14 days to get hired, when considering 2 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Google overall takes an average of 38 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Google as a Software Engineer Intern, PhD according to 2 Glassdoor interviews include:
Skills test: 33%
Phone interview: 33%
One on one interview: 33%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied online. I interviewed at Google in Dec 2025
Interview
I had 2 interviews scheduled. 5 mins introduction about myself, then an introduction of a DSA-related computational problem. In one of the interviews, the problem was easy; we discussed multiple approaches to solve the problem and time complexity-related and space complexity-related nuances. In the other interview, the problem was of medium difficulty; most of the time was spent on implementing the solution. At the end, we quickly discussed the time complexity of the problem.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
One was a dynamic programming knapsack problem. The other was a combination of two common DSA problems - both of easy difficulty.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Google in Feb 2014
Interview
Went to a career fair and was told to apply online. I applied online and got two back-to-back phone interviews. Maybe there were going to be interviews after that but I wouldn't know because I got rejected. At least they were fast about rejecting me and were efficient throughout the interview process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They gave me a piece of C++ code and asked me to "improve" it.