I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Google (Mountain View, CA) in May 2015
Interview
It went from LinkedIn Recruiter to a day at Google HQ in Mountain view in 10 days.
LinkedIn direct message -> Recruiter phone call -> PM phone interview -> Flight to Mountain View (5 interviews with PM's and engineers)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Explain the concept of "protocol" to a 4-year-old child using "ice cream store" as an analogy.
Very self-driven, first of multiple rounds, where I had to take the initiative to arrive at the problem, constraints, approach, solutions, tradeoffs and reasoning behind it in a matter of 30 minutes.
You would have to do a hiring assessment first, then a recruiter screening follows. First round interview with the hiring manager. Majorly product sense and product improvement. The questions were not direct though.
Overall a lot of steps to the interview process. Talked to different people and had opportunities to ask questions. Many different stages which made it a lengthy process overall. Wasn't too bad.