Hey there, aspiring Google Play Services developer!
Are you getting ready for your interview with Google Play Services? Are you a little nervous? Don’t worry! We’ve got your back. This complete guide has everything you need to do well in the interview and get the job of your dreams.
First things first, let’s break down the interview process:
- Recruiter Connect: The recruiter might reach out to you based on your online profiles or through referrals. You can also take the initiative and message recruiters directly on LinkedIn or apply through Google’s Career page. If you’re a rockstar in Data Structures and Algorithms, participating in Google Kickstart, a coding competition held six times a year, can also put you on the recruiter’s radar.
- Interview Rounds: Buckle up for a total of seven interview rounds. The first two are telephonic interviews, each lasting 45 minutes. Here, the interviewer will throw you a medium or two easy Algorithm and Data Structures problems to solve. Aced Kickstart? You might skip straight to the next round. Next up, you’ll face five onsite interviews, four of which will test your Algorithm and Data Structures skills, and one will be a “Googliness” interview, which is essentially a behavioral interview to assess your cultural fit.
After the interviews, the recruiter will give you feedback. If you’ve impressed them, your profile will be sent to different teams at Google for a team matching round This is your chance to get to know the team’s work style and interests, and for them to learn about your expectations and aspirations If both sides click, you’ll receive an offer letter. Woohoo!
Now let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of the interview questions
Top 4 Google Interview Questions
- What Google product do you use the most? How can you fix it?
This question is designed to gauge your knowledge of Google’s offerings and your ability to think critically about product improvement, Don’t worry about giving the “perfect” answer, Just be passionate about Google and share how its products have impacted your life
- Who are Google’s top competitors? Does Google stand out from the rest?
This question assesses your understanding of the competitive landscape and Google’s unique strengths. Highlight your knowledge of Google’s competitors and explain why Google holds an edge.
- How do you ensure your co-workers are doing what they need to do?
Accountability is a big deal at Google This question tests your ability to take ownership and ensure your team members are on track, Share your strategies for promoting accountability and collaboration
- Have you ever taken a professional risk that didn’t pay off? What did you learn from it?
Google values innovation, which often involves taking risks. This question explores your risk-taking appetite and your ability to learn from setbacks. Tell me about a time when you chose to take a risk and what you learned from it.
More Google Interview Questions
We’ve got you covered with even more interview questions to help you prepare:
- What drew you to Google?
- What is your knowledge of Google’s history?
- In your opinion, should people use their legal names when setting up a Gmail account?
- What changes do you think digital marketing will undergo in the next five years?
- How would you explain this Google product to a young person?
- What do you think of Google charging for their productivity apps?
- Share a detail about yourself that you haven’t put on your resume.
- Can you give me an example of a time when you and your manager were at odds? How did you two finally come to an agreement?
- What does multithreaded programming mean?
- Could you briefly explain AdWords to someone who’s unfamiliar with the product and online advertising?
- If you were told to create an initiative to increase Gmail’s user base, what would you do?
- Describe a time when you faced a technical problem. How did you fix it?
- Let me know three non-Google sites that you like to visit. What do you like about them?
- How do cookies move along through the HTTP protocol?
- What is the function of congestion control in TCP protocol?
- If an advertiser doesn’t see the benefit of Adwords due to poor conversions, how would you convince them to stay on board?
- Pick an app on your phone’s home screen. What do you like about it? What do you dislike about it?
- What steps could YouTube take to improve its business model?
- Describe a time when you were faced with adversity. How did you overcome it?
- Could you explain why the Google homepage is mostly blank?
- In layman’s terms, how would you explain the balance sheet to someone who isn’t familiar with accounting principles?
- How would you assure a hesitant client that making the move to a cloud solution is the right thing to do?
- What is Google’s largest concern right now?
- Given an autosuggest issue in a developing country, what steps would you take to correct it?
- Tell me about an area where you believe Google is underinvested.
- Tell me about an area where you think Google is overinvested.
- Share a time when a project had expanded beyond what was originally anticipated.
- What can I discover about your personality by checking your browser history?
- Share a story with me about when you had to handle confusing circumstances.
- Let me ask you something: what do you enjoy doing outside of work?
- Tell me a time when you had to “sell” or propose a solution to an Engineering or Stakeholder Team.
- What’s the maximum number of golf balls that can fit in a school bus?
- Between learning and earning, which one do you enjoy more?
Five Great Questions to Ask at the End of a Google Interview
Impress your interviewer with these insightful questions:
- When I first started working for Google, what surprised me was…
- What challenge is Google facing today? What does this role hope to do to fix this challenge?
- What are the biggest opportunities for growth in this role?
- What are the biggest challenges I might face in this role?
- What is the team culture like here at Google?
Remember, preparation is key!
By thoroughly studying these questions and practicing your responses, you’ll be well-equipped to ace your Google Play Services interview. Good luck!
Toptal sourced essential questions that the best mobile app developers can answer. Driven from our community, we encourage experts to submit questions and offer feedback.
How can you store data in Android and iOS? Which databases and native solutions are available?
The native data storage solution for Android is SharedPreferences. This is intended to store small amounts of data, like user preferences or settings. The data are stored in an XML file.
There is a similar solution for iOS called UserDefaults (previously NSUserDefaults). The data are stored in a . plist file.
Both platforms can use SQLite and come with frameworks and libraries that let you work with the data (though you can also use the database by hand):
- iOS has Core Data, a framework to manage object graphs. It may save data in a binary store or just in memory, or it may use SQLite.
- The Room persistence library for Android makes it easier to manage SQLite databases and cuts down on the extra work that needs to be done when using databases.
The other possibility is Realm, a non-relational database system designed for mobile devices. It’s also available for hybrid solutions like Xamarin or React Native and is more efficient than SQLite. 2 .
What are internationalization and localization? Do these terms mean the same thing?
No, these terms are not synonyms, but they are related. They’re both relevant to making the app available (and user-friendly) in languages other than the default language.
Internationalization (“i18n”) is the process of adapting app code to other languages. For instance, an app might need to show data in a different format, prices, or numbers with the right decimal or thousands separators. It might also need to know if text is written from left to right or right to left. It also requires taking into account the user’s timezone.
On the other hand, localization (l10n) is the process of making the app’s content available in more than one language. This includes translating most of the app’s resources, like texts, s, and sounds. Different languages’ resources are usually kept in different files or directories. The OS picks the right one based on what the user has set up. 3 .
What is the best way for a server to notify an app that some new data is available?
A mobile app could use push notifications to get information from a server without having to make a lot of requests. This is better than asking for new data all the time because it will use less network data and not drain the battery.
Android and iOS each have their own solution for that:
- Apple Push Notifications sends push notifications to iOS devices only.
- Google no longer uses Google Cloud Messaging (GCM), but instead uses Firebase Cloud Messaging to send push notifications to devices. This is said to be “multi-platform,” which means it works with iOS devices by using the Apple Push Notification service (APNs).
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How can you debug your app when it’s already released?
There are lot of tools that provide crash and usage reports from mobile apps.
One of the most popular (and free) is Firebase Crashlytics, which supports both iOS and Android. It gives a lot of useful details about app crashes, such as the full-stack trace, the operating system version, the device manufacturer, and the language used by the user.
Some of the other tools are Sentry (useful when you write an app in JavaScript, e. g. , for React Native), Appsee, Raygun, and Instabug. They differ by provided crash and usage details and prices. 5 .
How can private information like contacts or camera (or other sensor) access be kept safe in the world of iOS apps?
Access to a user’s data or sensors is restricted by a permissions system. So, if the app wants to use a feature like GPS, it needs to ask the user for permission and explain why it needs permission.
The user can agree, or reject the request. The developer must plan for rejecting and give users a way to still use some app features that don’t need the rejected sensor or data. Permissions can be given or taken away from the user’s settings as well as when the app is running, so the app must always check for it.
The permissions mechanism can change between OS versions, so the developer has to be aware of that. For example, on Android below version 6. 0 (Marshmallow), permissions were declared in AndroidManifest. xml, and users granted all of them during the app’s installation. 6 .
How are native apps and hybrid apps different from each other? What are the pros and cons of hybrid apps?
Native apps are written specifically for one platform, in the language used on said platform, i. e. Objective-C or Swift for iOS, and Java or Kotlin for Android. The best thing about these apps is that they can be made to work on the platform that the user is used to. This way, iOS users won’t be confused by how some Android apps behave or look, and vice versa.
Hybrid apps can work on multiple platforms. A hybrid app is really just a web page that is shown in a web view, so it is usually written in both JavaScript and HTML. Popular hybrid frameworks are Ionic, Cordova, and PhoneGap.
Hybrid apps have worse performance than native apps, though. Accessing hardware on the device, like sensors, can be tricky at times, and code often needs to be written separately for each platform. This means that the developer has to write native code and things that are specific to each platform.
Also, it’s tough to make a single app that works well on both iOS and Android and looks good. Instead, making a hybrid app might be less expensive and take less time than making a separate app for each platform. This technique is especially suitable for small and simple apps.
There is also a third group of apps, developed using technologies like React Native, Xamarin, or Flutter. These are frameworks that try to connect the ease of writing multi-platform apps with native performance. They offer the possibility to write code in one language—JavaScript, C#, or Dart—and compile it into native code. Because the frameworks often use native implementations of controls, the hybrid apps aren’t quite as bad for users. 7 .
What are the main things you have to be cautious about when writing for mobile?
A mobile phone is more prone to network problems than a standalone computer. The user can move, going to some tunnel or area without WiFi or cellular network access. So the internet is not always available, or is not of the best quality. The phone may frequently switch between networks. When people use their cell phones, loading a lot of heavy data will use up their data packets and cost them more. The developer could make an offline mode and change how data loads when working on WiFi, LTE, 3G, or H; e g. , do not download movies or request lower-quality s.
Developers need to keep in mind that the device they are testing their app on is just one of thousands that people will use. They have to check how the app looks in smaller phones, bigger phones, tablets, etc. , and adapt the layout to them.
They also have to think about the different system versions that are out there (mostly on Android phones), choose which ones to support, and know what makes each one unique. Also, the app might have bugs on devices made by different companies, so it’s always a good idea to test it on a range of hardware or with a test-device farm.
Even though phones are getting bigger and bigger, we still need to be good at managing their memory. There are memory leaks and ways to speed up long-running tasks that developers need to be aware of because the OS will kill apps that use too much memory.
As with memory, manufacturers give us more and more disk space. For some devices, it’s also possible to extend this using SD cards.
Despite that, the developer should try to keep the app as small as possible. Users will be less likely to try a small app like a calculator if they have to download 500 MB of it first.
Users may uninstall an app and look for a better one if it keeps unnecessary files and otherwise takes up too much space after it has been installed.
This is one of the weakest points of contemporary phones. Every action we take in an app affects the battery.
Users will certainly remove apps that use too much battery. The developer must take care when it comes to using different services like GPS. When developers use these features, they should only do so when they have to. To update data in the background, they should use optimized OS solutions. 8 .
Describe the process of publishing apps on Google Play and in Apple’s App Store. What do you need to publish an app to each store?.
Both Google Play and the App Store require s, an app description, and a unique identifier.
Google requires that you have a developer account to publish apps.
When an app is ready, it should be built into an APK file.
The APK must be signed to prove that it comes from your specific company. A keystore, which is a file with one or more private keys belonging to the company or developer, is used to sign the document. (If this file is lost, no updates can be done for the app. ).
Google has also added a new way to publish apps called Android App Bundles. This system manages signing and offers a smaller APK file size, but it’s not compatible with older Android versions.
After sending files, it may take a few hours until the app is available in the store.
Apple requires a developer account connected with the Apple Developer Program to publish apps here.
First, the app must have a profile created for it in iTunes Connect.
The finished app is built into an IPA file, which has to be signed by some certificates. Xcode uses the Distribution Certificate (DC) and the Provisioning Profile to help do everything automatically. The Provisioning Profile links the DC to the app ID.
Once sent, the app is checked by a team at Apple. It may take several days until the app is approved (or rejected) for publishing. 9 .
Different screen sizes and resolutions can be hard to deal with. What new unit has been made to make positioning and sizing elements easier? What do you do with s?
Both Apple and Google have introduced their own unit to help developers deal with different screen resolutions. For Apple, they repurposed (or perhaps modernized?) the term “point” (pt) to no longer be 1/72nd of an inch, but to be 2x that on retina displays, or 3x that on larger retina displays—but the exact scaling is not always an integer multiple like that.
Google, instead, uses a relatively new term, the “density-independent pixel” (DIP or “dp”). Both plans are meant to hide the real screen resolution and give programmers a unit that isn’t based on pixels.
Each device has a scale factor of how many pixels corresponds to one point (or density pixel). That means that on some very old devices, when an iOS developer says that an is 80 pt x 80 pt, it will actually be 80×80 pixels. g. , the iPhone 3G), 160×160 on the iPhone 6, and 240×240 on the iPhone X.
The same rule applies to Android phones, but there are more scale factors that can be used on this platform.
Artists also need to be able to work with a range of screen sizes because they need to make graphics for each density group. Sometimes it is good to prepare different layouts for phones and tablets, or even portrait and landscape orientation.
When possible, s in SVG format should be used. They can be scaled without losing quality and they take less space than the same in different sizes. Both Android and iOS support using SVG s.
Also, both platforms support layout constraints. Using this technique, elements can be placed in relation to other elements or screen edges. This gives a more responsive design on different screens and orientations. 10 .
What is app sandboxing and what is it for?
App sandboxing is a security mechanism that isolates apps at the kernel level. The fact that each app runs in its own sandbox means that it can only access its own data and files. No other app can read or write to them.
This is done to keep user data safe from any bad software that might be installed on the device, whether on purpose or by accident. Even so, apps can still share data—but only the data they want to share—using system-built tools (e.g. g. , ContentProvider on Android).
There is more to interviewing than tricky technical questions, so these are intended merely as a guide. Not every good candidate for the job will be able to answer all of them, and answering all of them doesn’t mean they are a good candidate. At the end of the day, hiring remains an art, a science — and a lot of work.
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Questions and answers sent in will be looked over and edited by Toptal, LLC, and may or may not be posted, at their sole discretion.
Common Google Interview Question – Full Answer Explained
FAQ
What are the 5 rounds of Google interview?
Why is Google interview hard?
What questions do Android developers ask when interviewing?
If you’re interviewing for an Android developer position, you’ll likely be asked about your experience with Android Services. Android Services are a key component of Android applications, and being able to confidently answer questions about them is essential for any candidate hoping to land the job.
What are Google interview questions?
Interview questions are a reflection of a company’s priorities, so it doesn’t hurt to take advantage of the opportunity and gain some valuable insights that could help you stand out from the crowd. Here are 27 more Google interview questions you might face, depending on the job you’re trying to land:
What happens when you answer Google interview questions?
When you are finished answering Google interview questions, you typically get to ask a few yourself. This is a crucial opportunity. Not only will it ensure you can get details that may not have been covered, but it also lets you gauge whether the job is actually right for you.
What are Google Behavioral Interview questions?
Well, here’s what you need to know. Overall, Google loves behavioral interview questions. They help hiring managers learn more about how you think and what you would do in specific situations. Plus, most Google behavioral interview questions ask you to describe past experiences.
