u/Much_kitkat

Hey everyone,

I’m in a bizarre and incredibly stressful situation with Google for an L4 SWE role and need some perspective or advice from anyone who has gone through this recently.

The timeline so far:

• I completed my virtual technical interview loop a few weeks ago.

• I felt okay about it, and my recruiter reached out saying they were moving forward with team matching.

• We successfully found a manager match, and I thought we were heading into the final stages (Hiring Committee / compensation discussions).

The twist:

My recruiter just called me this morning and dropped a massive curveball. Instead of sending the packet to HC for a final offer, he told me I need to come into a local Google office for one additional, in-person coding round.

He framed it as needing more signal/validation before locking things down. I am spiraling a bit. I thought passing the loop and getting a team match meant I was mostly in the clear, but now I’m thrown right back into high-pressure interview mode.

My questions for the sub:

1. Why the in-person requirement? Is Google doing this to audit virtual loops due to the rise of AI-cheating tools/false flags, or did my interviewers just give completely mixed feedback that requires a tie-breaker?

2. What should I expect from a single in-person round? Is it a traditional whiteboard algorithm grind, or are they moving toward the newer "code comprehension" / debugging formats in-person?

3. How deep do I need to go on prep? If I grind the NeetCode 150 (focusing heavily on Trees, Graphs, and Arrays), is that enough to survive a one-off signal round?

Any insights, similar experiences, or brutally honest reality checks would be hugely appreciated. Thanks.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some insight or reassurance regarding Google's current hiring timeline.

A couple of weeks ago, I found out that I passed the technical interview loop for an L4 software engineering role. My recruiter told me last Wednesday that he was syncing with an Engineering Manager and told me that he is happy to move forward but he is talking to some other candidates as well I will ask for confirmation again with manager for a team match and that he would update me later that day.

Since then, it has been total silence. I followed up on Thursday morning, and then sent another proactive follow-up this Tuesday (yesterday) after the holiday weekend. In my last email, I let him know I'm still very interested in the team, but also explicitly mentioned I am completely open to exploring other teams or updating my resume to get more team match calls if this specific team has headcount constraints.

It has now been a full week since the recruiter promised an update, and 2 full business days since the long weekend ended.

• Is it normal for Google recruiters to go completely ghost-silent during the team match phase, even if they are usually fast repliers?

• Does silence at this stage mean the manager passed on my profile, or is it just typical Google bureaucracy?

• Since I already passed the L4 hiring committee loop, how safe is my profile in their system if this specific team match falls through?

Appreciate any insights or past experiences from current Googlers or people who went through the team match process recently!

I completed a team match call and afterward confirmed that I was interested in the team. My recruiter told me that the hiring manager liked the conversation and was okay with moving forward, but wanted to double-check with the manager before sending my packet to the Hiring Committee.

It’s been since Thursday (June 18) and I haven’t heard anything from the recruiter yet.

Is this normal? Has anyone else experienced a delay between team match confirmation and the packet being sent to Hiring Committee? Trying to understand if this timeline is typical or if I should follow up.

I completed a team match call and afterward confirmed that I was interested in the team. My recruiter told me that the hiring manager liked the conversation and was okay with moving forward, but wanted to double-check with the manager before sending my packet to the Hiring Committee.

It’s been since Thursday (June 18) and I haven’t heard anything from the recruiter yet.

Is this normal? Has anyone else experienced a delay between team match confirmation and the packet being sent to Hiring Committee? Trying to understand if this timeline is typical or if I should follow up.

I completed a team match call and afterward confirmed that I was interested in the team. My recruiter told me that the hiring manager liked the conversation and was okay with moving forward, but wanted to double-check with the manager before sending my packet to the Hiring Committee.

It’s been since Thursday (June 18) and I haven’t heard anything from the recruiter yet.

Is this normal? Has anyone else experienced a delay between team match confirmation and the packet being sent to Hiring Committee? Trying to understand if this timeline is typical or if I should follow up.

I recently went through a final onsite interview loop for a backend software engineering role at a well-known consumer tech company. The interviews went well overall, and the recruiter later told me my feedback was positive, but they ultimately couldn’t find the right team match/headcount at that time. They even tried matching me with multiple teams before closing the process. About a month later, I was contacted again by a different recruiter from the same company for a completely different role — this time an Android Engineer position with a different job description and different resume focus. I do have Android experience and feel comfortable interviewing for it. My question is: would it be viewed negatively if I mention to the new recruiter that I previously interviewed there for a backend role? And has anyone experienced getting reconsidered by the same company for a different engineering track shortly after a previous rejection/team mismatch?