CrackingWalnuts
Checked 3 August 2026. Google states that a committee decides and names the four attributes it scores. Round counts and timeline are commonly reported by candidates, not published. Source: careers.google.com/how-we-hire.
| Round | Duration | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Phone Screen (Coding) | 45 min | One medium to hard problem with follow-up. |
| Coding Round 1 | 45 min | Medium to hard. Complexity strict. |
| Coding Round 2 | 45 min | Different problem space. Hard variants common. |
| System Design (Deep) | 60 min | Open-ended design with strategy implications. |
| Cross-Team / Leadership | 45 min | How you work with other teams and senior peers. |
| Googleyness and Leadership | 60 min | Six attributes plus leadership signal at multi-team scope. |
Targeted guidance per round in this loop. Each section links to the matching track on the site. There is no shortcut list, the bar moves loop to loop, so build the pattern recognition and the stories from real practice.
Work the pattern templates until the recognition is instant. Trace one mock problem per pattern. Practice stating time and space complexity out loud before you write code.
Google L6 (Staff Software Engineer) has one design round: System Design (Deep) (60 min): Open-ended design with strategy implications.. Bar is owning architectural direction across teams. Trade-offs need numbers, alternatives need names, and the deep dive should be in your strongest area. Pick problems from the track at the scale this loop tests and rehearse the structure: requirements, numbers, high-level design, data model, API, deep dive on one part, trade-offs.
Staff bar. The work shifts to cross-team initiative, strategic judgment, influence without authority, and growing other engineers. Behavioral weight is roughly equal to system design at this level. Googleyness (humility, conscientiousness, comfort with ambiguity) is the framework to map stories to.