My experience with the Google Foobar challenge
I passed all the levels, but it was an interesting experience.
Happy Saturday my Fantastic Readers,
Continuing with our Google Theme, I will be sharing my Google Foobar Experience. To those of you that don’t know, Google Foobar is an invite-only challenge run by Google. It has multiple levels, and each is a lot of fun. Clearing it (or even just participating), gives you a chance to get selected for an onsite interview at Google.
In this email/post I will my experience with the Google Foobar. I will share how I got the invitation, my thoughts on the challenge, and some tips. To those of you that read to the end, I will also include a gift. A special form where you can put your email. That will put you in the queue for a referral to the challenge from yours truly. So make sure you’re appropriately hyped for this.
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How I got the invitation
Google has an algorithm that chooses you based on your search history (a pretty good way to get people to use their products). If your search history is sufficiently technical, Google will invite you to play.
Getting the invitation is the easy part for me. Because of my content and writing, I’m always searching for new concepts and terms. I trigger the Foobar invitation a lot as I’m doing my research/prepping my content. Once you get past a certain stage of the challenge, you can refer another person (which is how I will be able to refer everyone that puts their information in the form).
My assessment of the challenge
The Foobar is unlike any coding interview question/challenge you will do. What makes it very tricky is the sheer length of the questions asked. As mentioned earlier, Foobar is designed like an infiltration story. For every question, you are given a long-winded story about bunny rabbits, laser beams, and anti-matter. The challenge starts with figuring out what the question is asking you to do. This is deliberate. Unlike other coding interviews/screens, the Foobar expects you to Google the concepts you need to solve the problem. However, figuring out what concepts/data structures you will need is a challenge with Foobar.
I really like this approach much more than the standard Leetcode process. The ability to parse through ambiguous situations, filter out all irrelevant information, and frame the problem in a solvable way are crucial skills for developers. That is why I spend so much time explaining the setup of the problems (even when they might seem obvious). That skill has great carryover to both Hard Leetcode Problems, and actual development.
To get to the first screening, you will only need to pass three levels. The first 3 levels are much easier than the last 2. Questions in the last 2 stages often require extremely specific knowledge of very high-level concepts. Without the right game plan (which I will share next), you will fail.
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