I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in Mar 2014
Interview
First I had a quick HR interview and then a phone interview was setup with a product manager. The interviewer asked me to explain how I will go about building a video editing software for blind people. I thought my technical and creative thinking aspects were right on.
However, I messed up on some market sizing calculations, very basic percentages. I am startled at myself for that silly mistake that just got me off track. I had done these kinds of problems so very well in GMATs and GREs but messed up here, can't believe myself.
Anyway, apart from that, I thought the interview went well. I also did pretty good on coming up with ideas for business models for this video editing software. I was happy about my overall performance but kicked myself for the math calculation error. I didn't expect that this mistake and some confusion around it would cause me the job! In hindsight, I am not even sure if the interviewer was expecting me to challenge the product idea and ask questions about why would someone want to build such product with limited addressable market etc.
Very self-driven, first of multiple rounds, where I had to take the initiative to arrive at the problem, constraints, approach, solutions, tradeoffs and reasoning behind it in a matter of 30 minutes.
You would have to do a hiring assessment first, then a recruiter screening follows. First round interview with the hiring manager. Majorly product sense and product improvement. The questions were not direct though.
Overall a lot of steps to the interview process. Talked to different people and had opportunities to ask questions. Many different stages which made it a lengthy process overall. Wasn't too bad.