I prepared by reading many parts of Skienna’s algorithm design manual, and watching MIT algorithm lectures. I was already good at algorithms considering my previous class performances so I was just brushing up my knowledge. I spent particular attention to Graph theory following the advice of steve-yegge Blog post on the same topic. Solved as many algorithm problems as I could (I would say I spent a total of 30 hours preparing before my interview over one month), especially graphs because I figured graphs were important at google and if I could dazzle them with my ability to do graph problems then I was in. The day started gray to begin with and went downhill from there. The recruiter got there 15 minutes later than our meeting time and meanwhile I went from being mildly nervous to almost hysteric. When we met the first interviewer who was visibly annoyed because of the delay (or maybe that was just my perception), the recruiter blamed me for being late. That’s right. I was so shocked, it took me some seconds to actually figure out he really was saying this and after that I didn’t know what to do to make it right (pathetic, I know). I had five interviews back to back and one additional lunch interview in between. During my first interview it was as if I had a block in place of my brain, I must have asked the poor engineer 10 times to explain the question to me. It was as if he was talking gibberish. I could not focus, I was too nervous and pissed off at the recruiter. Needless to say, I could not write even one single line of code, mainly I stared at the whiteboard. I still don’t remember what the question was actually. I was so embarrassed. No algorithm question was ever asked. Yes, you heard it right. Not even something involving binary tree or search; nothing. There was one design question and three coding question. In short, there were things that were under my control. I didn’t do any whiteboard coding (big mistake) and didn’t have time for mock up interviews (another big mistakes). Given all that happened at the beginning to unhinged me (I am skipping something else that happened on the morning of the interview), had I practiced solving questions on the whiteboard and had I done mock up interviews I should have been able to handle it beautifully. The engineers who did the interviews, were all so nice and smart. The recruiters, oh well.