Learn How To SCE With
Us At Google Cloud!
What is SCE-ing?
Strategic Cloud Engineers (SCE) encompass a job family of roles that work with some of
Google’s biggest clients to develop their cloud strategies from inception to production. They
solve complex technical problems which are critical to our clients’ businesses such as
distributed systems development and cloud native transformation. They work with Product
Management and Product Engineering to build and consistently drive excellence in our
products. As part of the Google Cloud team in this rapidly growing area, you will help shape
the future of businesses of all sizes and use technology to connect with customers,
employees and partners. Specializatist roles under the SCE job family include: Data, Cloud
Engineering, AI/ML, Networking and G Suite.
Cloud Data Engineer Overview
As a Cloud Data Engineer, you will play a critical role in ensuring that customers have the best
experience moving to the Google Cloud suite of products. You are a technical expert with an
entrepreneurial drive and a passion for customer success. You architect, design and deliver
technical solutions. You are responsible for rapid and accurate resolution of technical
challenges, lead flawless implementations and integration of custom features. You'll have
access to Google’s incredible technology to monitor application performance, debug and
troubleshooting product code, and address customer and partner needs.
You will regularly code in Python, Java, and increasingly Go. The Data Engineer role requires
regular coding (at least weekly). Many of our most successful Data Engineers have software
engineering backgrounds in addition to data engineering experience. You will regularly
capture your learning from the field in order to create tools, template solutions, or best
practice guides to accelerate the next customer on their journey.
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Check out some of the cool customer projects we are currently working on:
● Twitter: A new collaboration with Google Cloud
● Unity: Connected Games with Google Cloud
● Streaming music for every moment with Spotify and Google Cloud Platform
● New collaboration with Fitbit to drive positive health outcomes
● Coca-Cola is building what’s next with Google Cloud Platform
● Shazam: saving through scaling with Google Cloud Platform
● Pivotal: Using Google Cloud to accelerate R&D for its cloud-native platform
● Etsy: Selecting a cloud provider
● Marketo: Moving petabytes of data to Google Cloud Platform
Also check out some of the team’s past solutions, blog posts, and guides:
● Dataflow Pipeline Templates
● Dataflow Elasticsearch Indexer
● Dataflow Python Examples
● Cloud Composer Examples
● Transitioning from Data Warehousing in Teradata to GCP Big Data
● Visualize GCP Billing using BigQuery and Data Studio
● Coding Apache Beam in your Web Browser and Running it in Cloud Dataflow
Basics of SCE-ing: Timeline
Many of the questions asked in Google interviews are open-ended because we want to see
how you engage with a problem.
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The specific questions will depend on your interviewer, but the ultimate goal is the same – to
understand how you think. Are you methodical, structured, logical, and holistic in your
thinking?
When you are asked a technical question, talk through your thought process and your
approach to problems and solutions. You are encouraged to ask clarifying questions. Many of
our initial questions do not have enough information for you to answer. We are trying to see
how you gather requirements, in the same way you would be expected to interact with
customers in this role. Ask specific questions if you need more clarification.
As we have discussed, Strategic Cloud Engineering at Google requires a combination of both
business and technical skills, so you should expect both types of questions in your upcoming
interview. If it has been a while since you have written code, we strongly recommend taking
some time to brush up on your tech skills/knowledge before your interview.
Testing on the Bunny Slope - The Technical Video
Interview
While this list is not necessarily exhaustive, it should be a good guide to
help you prepare. Also, don’t panic if you are not well-versed in all of
these areas. A little preparation can go a long way.
Our most successful candidates have spent time writing actual code using interview
preparation websites like HackerRank, leet code or firecode.io. Most successful candidates
dedicate weeks or even months practicing here. Even if you code day to day in your current
role, we do suggest spending time preparing for the coding interview.
Data Structures - Study up on as many data structures as possible. Data structures most
frequently used are arrays, linked lists, stacks, queues, hash-sets, hash-maps, hash-tables,
dictionary, trees and binary trees. You should know when to use these data structures and
which algorithms tend to go along with each data structure.
Algorithms - You will be expected to know the complexity of an algorithm and how you can
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improve/change it. Know Big-O notations (e.g. run time, space) and be ready to discuss the
runtime of your solution. You may wish to discuss or use bullets to outline the algorithm you
have in mind before writing code.
Programming/OO - You will be asked to write some code in at least one of the interviews (in
your preferred language). You will be expected to design APIs, using appropriate Object
Oriented Design and Programming. Be sure to think about how to test your code, as well as
come up with corner cases and edge cases for code. Note that we focus on conceptual
understanding rather than memorization. We're not focused on if you have memorized the
language's file system API for example.
Sample Question: Given a single page of a book, find me the longest word on that page.
Googleyness - We also want to make sure this is a place you’ll thrive, so we’ll be looking for
signs around your comfort with ambiguity, your bias to action and your collaborative nature.
Be prepared to talk about how you would support a team to help them navigate tough
challenges and changes. Think about how to effectively lead in a non-hierarchical team
environment and what your personal leadership style is.
Advancing to the Black Diamond Slope - The Onsite
Interviews
In addition to all the areas that were covered in the video interview, the
following topics will be covered as well:
Web/Internet Technologies - The communication protocols,
languages/APIs, and other mechanisms that enable the internet to
function. HTTP, Browsers, DNS, HTML/XML, AJAX, etc. Brush up on HTTP
Protocol basics: Part I, P
art II
Databases/SQL/NoSQL - Data modeling fundamentals, database
architecture/efficiency, SQL commands/syntax including analytical
functions, complex query design, etc.
Linux/Unix - Must be comfortable working in a Linux environment and will be expected to
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have a good working knowledge of user-level Linux commands, shell scripting.
Distributed Systems - Understanding the fundamental aspects (availability, scalability,
performance) of distributed systems. Be prepared to discuss tradeoffs in this space including
availability and consistency for data.
System Design - System design questions are used to assess a candidate's ability to combine
knowledge, theory, experience and judgement toward solving a real-world engineering
problem. Sample topics include distributed systems, designing a system under certain
constraints, simplicity, limitations, robustness and tradeoffs. Make sure you also have an
understanding of how the internet works and be familiar with the various pieces (routers,
domain name servers, load balancers, firewalls, etc.). For information on system design see
the resources at the end of this document. Typically system design questions will start with a
broad ask, and we're looking to see how you navigate that. Gather the appropriate amount of
information by asking questions and use your judgement to decide when to start proposing a
design. Hint: Asking no clarifying questions is typically not the right approach.
Troubleshooting - Interviewers are looking for a logical and structured approach to problem
solving through distributed systems, network and web scenarios. Make sure you understand
the questions and ask appropriate follow-up questions to the interviewer if you need
clarification. A big part is finding out what the actual problem is and breaking it down into
specifics. Check out Life in App Engine Production for a troubleshooting example.
Sample Question: Your marketing manager complains to you that the new company website is
slow, what would you do?
Networking - Show off your breadth of knowledge and , DNS, OSI layers, and load balancing.
Data engineers are not network specialists, so we're not as focused on networking depth.
However you should be broadly aware of network architectures, what the tradeoffs are, and
how you may troubleshoot basic network issues including latency. Check out Computer
Networking: A Top-Down Approach.
Leadership/Communications/Stakeholder Management - Be prepared to show examples
of how you’ve resolved complex situations. How did you ensure you dealt with team
challenges in a balanced way? You may also be asked some more hypothetical questions, so
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be prepared to talk through how you would influence, solve problems and drive
improvements. How would you take ownership and stay creative while moving quickly?
Project Management - While the majority of interviews are tech focused, we typically will
dive into your past projects. The project management interview covers hypothetical practical
questions on effectively leading end-to-end projects. This will include topics around applying
the right framework, navigating complexity and ambiguity and delivering results.
Remember to look into the topics covered in the video interview since they will show up
during your onsite interview as well! It will be a good idea to be familiar with Google Cloud
Platform, our customers, and the trends within the Cloud Industry. Research our industry
dynamics and current/recent industry events (hint: use Google News). Take a listen to the
Google Cloud Podcast put on by Googlers. Also familiarize yourself with other Google
products before your interview. Know how to simply describe these and how you might
potentially discuss the benefits with our clients. Finally we recommend to register for a free
trial account, here.
We are not expecting you to know the products in low level detail, but you should have a
mental map of the product categories as well as how products will map to technology that
you are familiar with.
Mastered The Art Of SCE-ing? | Next Steps
It usually takes interviewers about 3 to 5 business days to submit feedback following a phone
interview. As soon as I receive your feedback, I’ll make sure to reach out to you to provide an
update regarding next steps!
You may receive an Experience Survey asking you for feedback/satisfaction on my overall
communication throughout the process. My colleagues and I strive for a perfect report card,
so please let me know if you have any questions or concerns throughout the process. If you
don't get a survey, I am happy to personally take your feedback.
That’s it! I promise to take great care of you and will be updating you every step of the way,
but please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions.
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Additional Resources
[Coding Interview Prep Platform] About our Company
Hacker Rank Company - Google
Coding Interview Prep Platform The Google story
Life @ Google
Leet Code
Coding Interview Prep Platform Google Developers
Open Source Projects
Firecode.io Github: Google Style Guide
Coding Interview Prep Platform
[Practice and Mock Interview Platforms]
Pramp
Practice interviews with real people
Interviewing.io
Practice interviews with real people
[System Design Resources]
System Design Primer
A summary of key tradeoffs and system design
considerations.
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