Google India

Basic Information

Name Arya Vishe
Curriculum: Btech
Year of Study: 4th
Company/University of Internship: Google India
Role during Internship: Hardware Intern
Year of Internship (eg. '24 Summers, '23 Winters): ‘24 Summers
Mode of Internship (Online/Offline/Hybrid): Offline
Duration of Internship: 10 weeks

Getting into the Internship:

What specific domain or field did you target to get an internship in?

Initially I was aiming for a University Research Internship so I didn’t prepare for the Internship Season in my Second Year Summer. However at the start of the Third Year, I felt like it might be too risky to wait around for months waiting for a reply so I decided to fill IAFs for some companies I thought were good enough to leave my research internship for. I liked Digital and Signal Processing Domains in core Electrical Engineering, hence I filled IAFs for Sony, Google and Texas accordingly.

What resources did you utilize to prepare for the tests/interviews?

(a) Internship PPT [Held online on YouTube Live. I’d suggest that you definitely open the link once to fill the attendance form in the video description] (b) Google Online Challenge (Hardware) [Held on 22nd July (a few days before the semester started)] (c) 2 rounds of interviews [Shortlist for this stage was based on the Online Challenge + some resume filtering] I stuck to the notes I had made for EE214, EE224, EE309, EE337 for the bulk of the preparation. Texas had uploaded some helpful guides for preparing for their entrance exam so I used that as a rough estimate of how difficult the question in the Google Online Challenge (Hardware) would be. The official portion for the 30-minute Online Challenge was (i) RTL Coding (Basic Verilog Syntax Essentially) (ii) Performance and Power Architecture (Some theory) (iii) Digital Electronics and Microprocessors (Stuff covered by our courses) (iv) SoC and ASIC Design (Stuff like Setup & Hold Time Analysis)(v) CMOS Analog VLSI Design (Some theory) (vi) Scripting Languages (CS101 stuff with some basic Data Structures) Obviously a few of these concepts have not been covered by any of our coursework. I simply looked up those terms. You can find a rough estimate of my preparation here : Link1, Link2 (These are files I made after my test while preparing for the interview.) Even though the portion might seem a bit daunting, the questions are all easy. It is more akin to BITSAT in terms of difficulty-time ratio. For the interview, you need not study stuff you just picked up superficially for the Online Challenge. Stick to the basics and make sure your coursework (especially 224 and 309) are rock solid. You can skip the very 8085/8051 specific sections but the general concept of a pipeline should be crystal clear for you.

Can you elaborate on your interview and the type of questions which were asked?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1agYVD9GGs8ytPVvFTi6tfaIKq9mUFAYIKLEZLkNyWdc/edit?usp=drive_link

Were there any significant roadblocks or challenges that you encountered during the internship application and selection process? If so, how did you navigate or overcome them?

It was going to be my first ever professional interview so I was very nervous. Moreover, I was also quite worried about the fact that Google Hardware was one of the 2-3 options I was going to fill an IAF for, so messing it up could greatly reduce my chances of getting through. Otherwise, I didn’t face any specific problems from the internship selection process itself. Some of the mild inconveniences I faced have been documented in the last link.

How did you handle any rejections that you faced (If any) during the internship application process?

I had filled the IAF for Sony Japan and was quite optimistic of at least getting called for an interview since I had a 9-month long research experience in Signal Processing. They had asked for an SOP to be submitted along with the application so I spent 2 complete days just refining it till it looked perfect. In the end, they didn’t invite a single applicant for that profile for the interviews. ‘Twas quite sad but life goes on.

During the internship:

What was your specific profile or project topic during the internship?

I was part of the CPUArch team in Google Silicon whose job was to simply set targets for other teams by analyzing what the SoC should look like and then passing on that information to the further teams. I worked on multiple projects as the first project they allocated me was small for the amount of time I had. The first project was more of data analytics than core hardware. Google currently doesn’t make its own cores but buys them. However choosing the best core based on the power, area, current, thermal budgets and performance targets requires a lot of analysis. My job was to understand all of these processes first, and then create a tool that can automatically do it for the team thus freeing up weeks in the design stage. The next project I took was just a simple workflow thing wherein I simplified the process bywhich the teams could choose cores for analysis, and pass it to an ARM-based IP. The last one was the most interesting one for me and contained analyzing cache hit/miss latencies for a large number of configurations to give the best core-cache configuration as the result.

How would you describe your overall experience as an intern?

Overall, even though I’d agree that I could not take up a lot of “hardcore” digital stuff for my internship, all of it is important for the final product. Moreover, I loved that despite the age difference, my team was quite welcoming of the stupidest of my doubts. There wasn’t too much stress on me - in fact my host would always make sure I didn’t feel overwhelmed by work at any point of time. I actually had a lot of time to get into swimming and gyming (and Zumba. Side note : Zumba is very fun) while not being bored at work.

Could you provide insights into the organizational culture of the company/university and what your peers were like?

The culture is very welcoming and they create a great support system for you as soon as you join in with a Host, Co-host, Manager and Mentor set of people who would be in regular contact with you. My hardware co-interns (25 of us) were all from the top 6-7 IITs but the software cohort of interns (~400) had more diversity and so you could meet people from all over India.

Were there any networking opportunities or professional connections that you established during the internship?

Plentiful. I even got a lot of insights on what the industry wants and I should aim for, even in the case I don’t get the PPO.

After the Internship:

I will very enthusiastically suggest this internship experience to anyone who found the digital and microprocessor courses interesting. Even if you strip away all of the great perks, there are still a lot of learning opportunities you can get here. They treat interns just like employees in most contexts and encourage you to spend a lot of your time in talking to your seniors to get a better understanding of what work in this industry is like. At no point did I feel unwelcome or “just an intern” during this internship and I am happy that I was able to easily set up meetings with any person relevant to my work at a moment’s notice. Other than the project that is assigned to you (which is definitely going to be a product they want and would be seen in their work process/ products even after you leave. It won’t be a sandbox project made for the sake of evaluation), you can easily explore the cutting edge in this industry by just asking around for white papers, reading documentation etc… The uP industry is quite ahead of academia so this gives you a first hand view of today’s tech. It is also (in my heavily biased opinion) the best corporate experience you can get in core. So if you are trying to gauge corporate vs research/ academia, this could give you the best possible pointers for the former.