Google Onsite R1 Review

Hey folks,

Just wanted to get some insight into how Google evaluates candidates in Round 1.

I recently had my first-round interview and unfortunately got a rejection call today. The interview itself was for a graph problem specifically, we were given a directed graph and had to identify all the cyclic nodes. I explained my approach using DFS along with a set to track visited nodes. I also walked through an array-based approach since the interviewer suggested that direction, and I made sure to clarify why I opted for DFS + set instead.

During the interview, it felt like things went well. The interviewer seemed convinced and the discussion was pretty smooth. But here’s the kicker: the interviewer wasn’t really comfortable with Python. At one point, he even thought using def to declare a function was a typo… yeah.

So, now I’m just wondering did I miss something important? How does Google actually assess candidates in that first round? Would love to hear your thoughts.