My browser split open when I was just starting out in 2016 and I got this coding challenge from Google that could've led to a job interview.
One problem, I got it on a flight to Maui and when I landed I had to choose between the coding challenge or exploring Maui. I picked Maui, right decision at the time.
But, I applied to YC and I've been working 10-12 hours a day on my MVP. I've been having VERY DEEP conversations with chatGPT Plus and moving mountains with Cursor Pro. So I started to realize that Google must've sensed I have the mind of a software engineer even though I see myself as a 'creative developer' (a designer able to write code when needed).
Anyways, I need to go to sleep but had to ask this before I forgot.
As I recall it was primarily based on some rough hardcoded heuristics on your searches. It could be reliably reproduced with certain exact searches, and seemingly only targeted a few programming languages.