Yes, always. It is company policy. Google takes its standardized interview process more seriously than any other company I've heard of, except maybe Palantir.

So, you're telling me they made Vint Cerf do a whiteboard interview?

I don't know, someone would have to ask Vint. But it is a plain fact that Google interviews the engineers of a potential acquisition. For a small company, they'll pick and choose which ones to keep. For a large company, I don't know. The CEO may or may not go through the full interview process -- I've seen it both ways, seems to depend on whether they're buddies with the VP.

> If they buy the company that you built specifically to get access to you, do you think you'll still end up getting screened out by some junior dev on a whiteboard?

In this case probably not, but you'll have to do several rounds with the VPs. Of course the tenor is very different, more conversational / situtational instead of technical questions. But you're still being sniffed out. Unless you're already pals with the VP.

The problem is that exceptional isn’t a binary quality, exceptional at google is going to be another level than exceptional at some obscure contracting firm.