6: Really the big focus of this interview is going to be technical skills.

9: Most interviewers are going to run a few warm-up questions,

12: one main question that's going to take the bulk of the time,

14: so you can imagine a 30- to 35-minute interactive question.

17: The questions themselves aren't going to have the answer presented to you directly.

22: You really have to understand what the question is asking

23: and have an understanding of different data structures and algorithms to be like,

26: OK, I can mix and match this together a little bit to make this happen,

31: and then you can build on top of anything you have to do inside the actual interview.

35: From my experience, all the interviewers from Google are extremely nice,

39: so they are very supportive and helpful.

42: Even though the first solution you come up with might not be the best,

46: they will guide you through and give you enough hints, so eventually you can get the best solution.

55: You definitely need to think out loud.

57: First, ask clarification questions. Second, call out assumptions.

63: Third, you need to explain your thoughts clearly before jumping into coding.

69: It's like: What are your edge cases? Define those first. Is anything going to be null?

73: What kind of inputs are you getting? So you can make sure that,

75: you know, your system won't break halfway through.

77: Definitely speak out loud so that your interviewer knows kind of where your mind is on certain things,

82: and that's when they can give you hints every now and again,

84: like, "Oh, maybe don't use a HashSet; a HashMap might be a little better."

87: I think a lot people come into it with the misconception that

90: for every problem you're given, you must find the algorithmically optimal solution,

93: but it's better to find some solution than none at all. That's really easy to mess up.

100: The biggest piece of advice on how to do well at a software engineering interview is

103: to not try to do well at the interview, but how do you do well as a software engineer in general, right?

107: And that comes with practice, and it comes with knowing your code.

110: So you really have to do what you have to do to make sure that when you do get on site, you crush it.

114: I'd recommend the Google Tech Dev Guide to make sure that

117: your fundamentals are going to be strong for the interview.

120: Make sure that you're really good at at least one language,

122: because you're only going to get to pick one when you do the interview.

124: Prepare yourself. Get used to coding on a whiteboard.

127: The difference between coding on a whiteboard and coding in an editor

132: is that you don't have any helpful tools to guide you through to finish the syntax.

138: So it's easy to just practice writing some code on a piece of paper

141: where you don't have that type of tool.

145: I think there's a misconception that you need to be, like,

147: you know, the best engineer ever to work at Google.

150: You know, you don't need to be an expert at algorithms; you just need to be good at them.

154: You don't need to know some really high-level complex data structures;

157: you just need to know all the basic ones really well.

159: You kind of think of Google as this, like, super software-engineer-producing entity,

164: but then you realize it's people that have also been through your same process, right?

168: They practiced, they worked, they developed to be who they were today.

171: Of course Google likes to hire smart people, but

175: don't underestimate yourself — you can do it.