I was contacted via LinkedIn originally for a position in Mt. View. When I made it clear that I wouldn't relocate, they referred me to the Seattle office -- which turns out to be the 3rd largest Google office after Mt View and New York. Seattle recruiter was very friendly and stayed in touch up until I was handed off. After initial phone I was set up for the standard tech screen phone interview. I hit it off well with the phone tech guy and managed to work through the question. After review by hiring committee I was handed off to another recruiter and setup for onsite interview in Seattle office. One comment, although I emphasized at every turn that I felt that the Kirkland office would be an easier drive for me, I was consistently sent to the Seattle office which I found a little odd. I arrived on time for my 6 hour interview at the office in Seattle. Apparently this office is growing rapidly, they are taking over another building already. Parking is a little strange, if you can find their parking garage I believe they will validate your parking. If you park on the street you'd better have some cash -- I think it was $10 for the day and I didn't get reimbursed for that. It's an exciting and scenic location right on the water in the Fremont area. My first interviewer was running late and he seemed a bit rushed in general, I guess he was in the process of moving to Calif for a month. I had interviews in three different conference rooms and two different buildings, 5 tech interview and one friendly interview who told me that he does not report anything so I can ask him anything I want -- its good to be prepared with your off the record type questions to ask your lunch companion. Generally the interviewers were pretty friendly and diverse in style and personality. They were very open about the process, I found out that decisions are made by a hiring committee, not by the interviewers -- very different from Amazon for example. They have categories of questions that must be covered. Almost everyone asked me a fairly typical coding question, I was also asked questions about how I would design and test larger projects. For example, one question was to design a suggestion list for the Google Search engine. One nice thing about Google was that they provided me with a chromebook and I was given the option to write my code on the chromebook. I was also given the option to use the Whiteboard. I tended to use both -- the whiteboard for working out algorithms and drawing diagrams, the chromebook for serious coding. This was a little awkward since the big screen didn't seem to be working right so they had to huddle around me while I was typing. Overall I felt good about the onsite interview, I was very curious to see the Google facility, experience their vibe and meet some actual Googlers so in that regard I was very happy. I had mixed feelings about taking the job since it would be a long commute for me, so I wasn't terribly disappointed or surprised when the hiring committee declined to make me an offer. The recruiter did make a point of giving me that news on the phone and she also went out of her way to say that I had received much positive feedback and the door is always open if I want to try again. She couldn't give me any detailed feedback unfortunately, against policy, and she did apologize for the lack of transparency in that regard. Personally I think Google is probably the best of the big tech companies in terms of how they treat people and interesting projects. They encourage people to move around from project to project which I like quite a bit, and they provide lots of fun benefits. When compared to my Amazon experience I have to say that Google wins on every level.