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 ou​t ​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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