I applied for the job which is based in Mountain View HQ in late September and got invited for phone screening with recruiter the next week. Phone call lasted 30 minutes and led to phone interview with some random Google employee in New Jersey. This led to a final interview onsite at HQ in Mountain View. They paid $3000 total on me to fly out and keep me in a hotel. They told me to dress business casual and everyone was wearing jeans or shorts compared to my khakis and white dress shirt. Regardless, the interviews were great, they showed me where my work desk would be and even treated me to lunch and later coffee at the office dining hall. All of the interview questions were STAR based for every single "interview" so it was mainly friendly conversation and everyone just seemed very laid back.I got a phone call a week later saying that they decided on an internal candidate instead so it resulted in being a nearly 3 month complete waste of time since now that I've been interviewed, it's at least a 6 month wait until I can apply for another job there. Just a waste of everyone's time and their money, but at least I got to network with some other companies and was able snag job interviews with other companies. I doubt I will apply back because they are very cavalier about wasting your time