My first day at Google was yesterday. The interview process was a typical full day affair with questions ranging from algorithms to large scale systems design. I had a blast, and definitely stumbled on some questions, but I found it infinitely enjoyable. HR was responsive and helped me find an Android plushie for my girlfriend.

To be fair, I definitely believe all of these horror stories are true and deserved. I think that Google just operates at such a ridiculous scale that it's hard to get everything working together just right. I believe "the system works" in the majority case, but that outliers are particularly bad.