I applied through an employee referral. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Google (Sydney) in Feb 2012
Interview
I started at Google as an intern, which required one non-technical phone screen followed by three technical phone interviews (one more than most people get). The questions here were all fairly straightforward questions of the form "Write some algorithm with some performance characteristics".
After a three month internship, I took "conversion" interviews to apply for a full time position. After a practice interview (where feedback is given - a tool to help interns prepare), I took two in-person, whiteboard-coding interviews back-to-back. I was lucky enough that the questions I was asked and my skillset intersected, and was offered a job several weeks later.
There was quite a long time between my interviews and my job offer, but my HR representitive was very communicactive and helpful the entire time, letting me know which stage my application was in.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I don't want to leak any interview questions; but the general content of questions Google asks is no big secret. I can categorically state that there are NO stupid brain-teaser "You are shrunk to the size of a quarter" type questions at all. The questions all involve coding an algorithm. I suggest that everyone considering applying for a technical role at Google read Steve Yegge's (public) blog post about it. All you need is in there: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com.au/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html
I applied online. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Google in Nov 2011
Interview
I applied online and got a mail saying they were interested in my profile and sent me details regarding filling an application form. It was basically to determine my areas of interest and my area of expertise. After this the HR sent me a mail asking for a convenient time for scheduling a phone interview. Had 2 back to back interviews. Interviewer was friendly.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a set of intervals(time in seconds) find the set of intervals that overlap