Microsoft SDE Intern Interview Experience
💼 LTIMindtree Interview Experience (On-Campus) | Fresher | 2026
Salesforce SMTS | Interview Experience | Rejected
JPMC | SDE2 (Associate) - Java Backend - Interview Experience + Compensation
Microsoft - SDE2 - Coding Round
Goldman Sachs | Analyst | Bangalore | [Offer]
Summary
I successfully interviewed for an Analyst position at Goldman Sachs in Bangalore and received an offer. The interview process consisted of several coding and problem-solving rounds heavily focused on Data Structures & Algorithms, concluding with a combined coding and hiring manager discussion.
Full Experience
My interview journey at Goldman Sachs for the Analyst role in Bangalore began with a Coding Round. I was presented with two questions that tested my problem-solving skills, likely involving array manipulations and algorithmic thinking.
Following this, I moved to a CoderPad Round focused on DSA. Here, I had to implement a function to encode strings, for instance, transforming 'aaab' into 'a3b1', and then tackle the classic problem of finding the median of two sorted arrays, requiring an optimized approach.
The first Problem Solving Round challenged me with grouping anagrams from a list of strings and again, the 'Array Burst Problem', which I recognized as similar to the 'Remove All Adjacent Duplicates in String II' problem on LeetCode.
The second Problem Solving Round continued with DSA, where I was asked to solve the 'Subset Sum problem', specifically the 'Partition Equal Subset Sum' problem, and determine the length of the 'longest valid parentheses' in a string.
My final round was a combined Coding & Hiring Manager discussion. This round included a unique sorting problem: given an array of strings and a character, I needed to sort the array such that strings containing that character came first, followed by others, with an example like sorting 'Hello', 'Apple', 'World', 'Football' by 'U' to get 'World', 'Apple', 'Football', 'Hello'. I also faced a problem involving finding the nearest hotel to each customer on a grid, along with extensive follow-up questions on its implementation, various use cases, and how to scale the solution for a large customer base. Additionally, I was asked several behavioral questions during this segment.
All onsite rounds were conducted virtually via Zoom.
Interview Questions (8)
Implement a function to encode a string where consecutive identical characters are replaced by the character followed by its count. For example, 'aaab' should become 'a3b1'.
Given two sorted arrays, find their median. The solution should be optimized, typically aiming for an O(log(min(m,n))) time complexity.
Given an array of strings, group anagrams together.
Given an array of strings and a specific character, sort the array such that strings containing the character come first, and within those, strings are sorted lexicographically. Strings not containing the character follow, also sorted lexicographically. The example shows sorting by character 'U' resulting in ['World','Apple','Football','Hello'] from ['Hello','Apple','World', 'Football'].
Given a grid-based input representing Hotels, Customers, and Blockers, find the nearest hotel for each customer. This problem also involved follow-up discussions on implementation details, various use cases, and how to handle scaling for a large number of customers.
Preparation Tips
To prepare for this interview, I primarily focused on strengthening my foundation in Data Structures and Algorithms. I practiced a wide range of problems, particularly those involving arrays, strings, dynamic programming, and graph-like traversals, similar to problems found on platforms like LeetCode. For the system design aspects and behavioral questions, I reviewed common architectural patterns and prepared answers using the STAR method to effectively articulate my experiences.