Scale the out-of-band control plane infrastructure that bootstraps and manages Google's data centers

Google's Control Plane Networking team scales the out-of-band infrastructure responsible for bootstrapping and ongoing management of network devices across Google's global data centers, including work supporting AI-driven networking growth. This is a senior, full-stack infrastructure role spanning distributed systems, network fundamentals, code review, and design leadership.

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Likely format

Standard Google SWE loop: phone screen(s) with coding, onsite/virtual rounds covering coding, system design, and a Googleyness/leadership behavioral interview.

What this interview tests

Control-plane / out-of-band network infrastructure design at data-center scale
Distributed systems: scaling, availability, efficiency tradeoffs
Technical leadership: driving design reviews, mentoring, code review rigor
Production issue triage across hardware/network/service layers
Core data structures and algorithms depth

Common question themes

Design or scale an out-of-band network management system for data centers

Data structures and algorithms coding rounds

System design: control plane scaling, availability, and fault domains

Leadership/behavioral: leading a design review or mentoring junior engineers

Googleyness/leadership behavioral round

How candidates describe it

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