Build the control software that keeps Google's TPU supercomputers wired together and running

This role sits in Google Cloud building software across the TPU supercomputer stack — from host-machine daemons up to network routing rules embedded in the TPUs themselves. You'd build control software for massive networked hardware fleets, monitoring/deploy/qualify tooling, and software for scale-out/scale-up of accelerators supporting data-parallel ML workloads like ring all-reduce.

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What this interview tests

Distributed infrastructure and networked hardware control software
Reliability tooling: monitor/deploy/qualify/service systems at scale
Accelerator interconnect and data-parallel algorithms (ring all-reduce)
Large-scale infrastructure or distributed systems fundamentals
Compute/storage/hardware architecture familiarity

Common question themes

Design a monitoring/deployment system for a large fleet of specialized machines

How would you reason about scale-out reliability for networked hardware

Explain ring all-reduce and how interconnect design affects its performance

Tell me about a distributed system or infrastructure project you built

How do you approach a bug that could be in host software or hardware routing

How candidates describe it

Real Software Engineer interview stories — retold from candidates' public write-ups, with sources.

Google · L4 Software Engineer, Google CloudOffer

Google L4 Cloud Software Engineer Interview: Downleveled to L3

A referred candidate interviewed for an L4 software engineer role on a Google Cloud team in Bangalore, going through a phone screen, three onsite coding rounds (the third left unfinished), and a culture conversation, only to have the hiring committee offer L3 instead of L4; the candidate obtained the compensation letter and declined the next day because the pay was below their current salary.

Interviewed 2021 · Bangalore, India

Google · L3 Software EngineerOffer

Google L3 software engineer interview: phone screen, four coding rounds, and the Googleyness round

A candidate with two years of experience went from recruiter outreach to offer over about four months. The onsite was four 45-minute coding rounds — three of them featuring binary trees — and one round turned into a 25-minute chain of follow-ups about approximating an optimal solution at scale.

Interviewed June 2020 · Bangalore, IN

Google · L4 Software EngineerNo offer

Google L4 Software Engineer Interview: Eight Rounds, No Offer

An L4 Software Engineer candidate went through two phone screens, three onsite rounds, a culture conversation, and a team-matching call with a Google hiring manager, then watched the process stall for about a month and a half over a tightened experience requirement before an added extended round ended without an offer.

Interviewed February 2024 · Not specified

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