Google iOS SDE [L4]: Interview Experience 2025

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

After spending several years building iOS applications and working at Microsoft, I decided to explore new opportunities and eventually interviewed with Google for L4 SDE in the iOS domain. In this article, I’ll share my interview experience, the preparation that helped me, and a few lessons I learned along the way.

The Interview Process

The overall process consisted of several rounds spread across a few weeks. While I can’t share specific questions, I’ll walk through the structure and my experience with each round.

The Calling

I had got calls from Google several times starting from my college. But as fate would have it, I chose to stick with my current job due to couple of factors, so didn’t go with the interviews. I had cracked the L3 level in 2023 as well, but still didn’t go with the switch.

Finally, in 2025, when I received the final offers from some companies, I decided to give switch a chance.

Phone Screen (2 July)

In the 2023 interviews, the screening round was omitted. However perhaps due to earlier rejection of offer, I went through screening this time. I had requested to be interviewed for L4 iOS domain specifically.

The problem: It was a easy-medium question around strings and files, and printing output for different queries. There was a follow-up which required using queue.

I aced this one easily and the interviewer looked satisfied.

Self rating: Strong hire

Onsite Round 1: DSA (28 July)

Onsite is a bit of a misnomer, since all rounds were virtual.

The problem: This was again a problem around strings, a sliding window and printing the strings according to some condition. 2 follow-ups were asked as we had time. Follow-up 1: This was to consider stream of strings, so needed to use some kind of buffer to store the relevant info. (easy-medium) Follow-up 2: This involved a change in condition, which also affected what information to print from the buffer. I took some time to come up with a solution for this, it involved couple of discussions. (medium)

Self rating: Hire

Onsite Round 2: iOS domain (29 July)

This was the first time I was giving an iOS domain round, hence I was not sure exactly what to expect. I had expected some LLD in iOS, but it turned out to be DSA in Swift. I was required to show my Swift skills and expertise throughout the round.

The problem: It was an acyclic connected graph related problem. The question looked hard while reading but the solution turned out to be easy. It was also the first time I was solving DSA in Swift, but since I had sufficient practice in my daily job, hence I didn’t face any issues. (easy) Follow-up 1: Given the nodes are colored black and white, now to solve the initial problem. (medium) Since we had time left, we went through a few theoretical iOS conceptual questions. (easy)

For the DSA part, I was required to use the best data structures in Swift which would make the code concise and reusable, and to show my Swift expertise while coding the solution.

Self rating: Strong hire

Googleyness / Behavioral Round (30 July)

For this round, I was asked the typical behavioral questions one can expect. Questions were around situations faced in daily work life, and how I acted to those situations. For e.g., a situation where you needed to mentor someone. I was asked 2 such questions, and we wrapped up early.

Self rating: Strong hire

Team Matching (Nov)

Since there was a hiring freeze in between and iOS roles in India were also not opening up, I was on-hold for couple of months. Once there were some openings, I got a team matching scheduled.

This was a bit like the Googleyness round but more of discussions, where I got to know about the product and the team, answered the behavioral questions and discussed few Swift topics.

Both the interviewer and I were satisfied with moving forward with the team. Post this, there were salary negotiations and the offer was released within a week.

How I Prepared

My preparation focused on a few key areas:

• Focused DSA preparation, mastering key concepts with 2–3 questions in each topic, and ample practice.
• Swift fundamentals and concurrency
• UIKit and SwiftUI concepts
• Architecture patterns and design decisions
• iOS system design
• Behavioral stories and communication

For DSA rounds, I get the most confidence from mock interviews before my round. For system design concepts, I would recommend using this guide.

Final Thoughts

Receiving an offer from Google was definitely a memorable milestone, but the journey itself taught me a lot about preparation, communication, and problem-solving.

I hope sharing my experience helps fellow iOS engineers preparing for similar opportunities. In future articles, I’ll share my experiences on system-design rounds with other companies as well. Stay tuned!

Please feel free to connect with me if you are preparing for interviews: https://tinyurl.com/3kkjssx2