Technical Program Manager, Submarine Networks

Google

Imagine you are developing a racing game. You need to implement a system that determines the placement of each car in the race at any given moment. The race track is a circular track of a fixed length. Each car has a unique ID and a current distance traveled from the starting line. Design a function that takes a list of cars, where each car is represented by its ID and distance traveled, and returns the current placement of each car, considering the circular nature of the track. For example, if the track length is 1000 meters and a car has traveled 1200 meters, its actual position on the track is 200 meters. Consider edge cases such as multiple cars having the same position. Can you implement a function that efficiently calculates and assigns placements to the cars based on their positions on the track?

Google

Let's design a prototype for a system that answers questions based on financial documents. To make this concrete, imagine a user needs to quickly find information within a company's annual report (a PDF containing financial statements, management discussion, etc.). The user might ask questions like: What was the company's revenue for the last fiscal year? What were the primary risks identified by management? How did operating expenses change compared to the previous year? Describe your approach to building a prototype that can accurately and efficiently answer these types of questions. Consider aspects such as: Document ingestion and processing:** How would you load and pre-process the financial documents (e.g., PDF parsing, text extraction)? Information retrieval:** What techniques would you use to identify the relevant sections of the document that contain the answer? Question answering:** How would you extract the answer from the relevant text (e.g., using rule-based methods, machine learning models)? Data storage:** How would you store the information from the documents to allow for efficient querying? User interface:** How would the user interact with the system to ask questions and receive answers? Evaluation:** How would you evaluate the performance of your prototype?

Google

Can you describe a time you had to work with a difficult team member and how you handled the situation? This is a common behavioral interview question designed to assess your interpersonal skills, conflict resolution abilities, and ability to work effectively in a team environment, even when faced with challenges. When answering this question, it's crucial to provide a specific example, detailing the situation, your actions, and the resulting outcome. This allows the interviewer to understand your approach and evaluate your effectiveness. For instance, you might discuss a project where a team member consistently missed deadlines, hindering the team's progress. In your response, you should: Describe the Situation: Clearly outline the project, the team member's role, and the specific behaviors that made them difficult to work with (e.g., missed deadlines, lack of communication, negative attitude). Be objective and avoid accusatory language. Explain Your Actions: Detail the steps you took to address the situation. Did you have a one-on-one conversation with the team member? Did you involve a supervisor or mentor? Did you try to understand the reasons behind their behavior? Did you adjust your own approach to accommodate their needs? Highlight the Result: Explain the outcome of your actions. Were you able to resolve the issue? Did the team member improve their performance? What did you learn from the experience? Even if the outcome wasn't ideal, focus on the lessons learned and how you would approach a similar situation in the future. Remember, the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) can be a helpful framework for structuring your answer. The interviewer wants to see that you can navigate challenging interpersonal dynamics professionally and contribute to a positive team environment.