I'll be starting at Google in a week and a half. I can't go into specifics, but I can say this:
I had two phone interviews - the first had quite a few questions about my prior experience (over a decade) and how to approach real-world problems from a high-level, including some that I had worked on at my current position. The second was primarily purely technical, but did have some more theoretical/project-management-y type of questions. In neither one was I required to write any code.
On-site: one interview was entirely whiteboard-coding (in a collaborative style), on a set of related generic problems. Next was one with a set of problems related to my experience. Third was almost entirely telling war stories. Last two were some generic graph-theory-type problems and some simple problems involving data structures relevant to the my area of experience.
As I hadn't interviewed for anything in 11 years, I did spend some time brushing up on my basic algorithmic theory, and essentially followed Steve Yegge's suggestions. I honestly think I probably could have done the vast majority of it without any studying, but spending time practicing solving problems on paper (with a countdown-timer as an artificial pressure-inducing device) certainly did help me, I think, in the on-site. No amount of memorization could have helped with most of it, aside from basic knowledge that anyone who's taken Data Structures should know.
I didn't find the process to be insulting at all; it was an enjoyable challenge. Everyone I talked with on the engineering side of things I can only say the best about, and so far as I can tell the team I'll be with has some really great people. I am a more senior developer, so perhaps I got a different experience than some.
When I interviewed with them, it seemed the interviewers had quite a large effect on how each session went. I had four great interviews, and two that were unpleasant. This had very little to do with how challenging the questions were and a lot more to do with the style of the interviewer.
I had two phone interviews - the first had quite a few questions about my prior experience (over a decade) and how to approach real-world problems from a high-level, including some that I had worked on at my current position. The second was primarily purely technical, but did have some more theoretical/project-management-y type of questions. In neither one was I required to write any code.
On-site: one interview was entirely whiteboard-coding (in a collaborative style), on a set of related generic problems. Next was one with a set of problems related to my experience. Third was almost entirely telling war stories. Last two were some generic graph-theory-type problems and some simple problems involving data structures relevant to the my area of experience.
As I hadn't interviewed for anything in 11 years, I did spend some time brushing up on my basic algorithmic theory, and essentially followed Steve Yegge's suggestions. I honestly think I probably could have done the vast majority of it without any studying, but spending time practicing solving problems on paper (with a countdown-timer as an artificial pressure-inducing device) certainly did help me, I think, in the on-site. No amount of memorization could have helped with most of it, aside from basic knowledge that anyone who's taken Data Structures should know.
I didn't find the process to be insulting at all; it was an enjoyable challenge. Everyone I talked with on the engineering side of things I can only say the best about, and so far as I can tell the team I'll be with has some really great people. I am a more senior developer, so perhaps I got a different experience than some.