Goldman Sachs Analyst interview experience (0.7 years exp)

My interview journey for the Analyst role at Goldman Sachs, with 0.7 years of experience, began with a referral from an Associate Software Engineer.

Round 1: HackerRank Online Assessment (90 minutes)

This round consisted of two coding questions. One was based on Dynamic Programming, and the other was an implementation problem that I don't exactly recall. Both were of medium difficulty, and I successfully solved both questions.

Round 2: CoderPad Live Coding (60 minutes)

In this live coding session using CoderPad, I was given a problem: to print all stations in the shortest path between a source and a destination. A follow-up asked what if every edge between stations had a unit weight. I successfully solved both the main problem and the follow-up. Soon after, I received a call from HR for the next set of rounds.

Super Day (3 Rounds Back-to-Back, Each ~1 Hour Apart)

Round 3: Data Structures and Algorithms (60 minutes)

I faced two interviewers, each posing one coding question. I used a Min Heap for the question 'Find the Kth most frequent element in an array' and applied a Sliding Window technique for 'Find the length of the longest subarray with at most K distinct characters'. I successfully solved both questions and passed all test cases.

Round 4: Java and Software Engineering Principles

This round, with two interviewers, focused heavily on Java and OOP. Questions covered wrapper classes, int vs Integer, the static keyword and static methods (requiring code), differences between ArrayList and LinkedList, Singleton class implementation, and Linked List creation with insertion and deletion (code required). There were several additional Java and OOP-related questions. I struggled a bit in this round due to my limited proficiency in Java.

Round 5: System Design

Two interviewers, one at a VP level, conducted this round. We first discussed my personal project—how I designed and implemented it, the challenges I faced, and how I tackled them. Then, I was asked to design a Quora-like application, including schema design, API structure, and writing SQL queries based on the schema. As this was my first-ever system design interview, I found it challenging. I made several back-and-forth changes during schema design and missed some best practices.

Final Verdict

I was ultimately rejected. The feedback indicated a negative review for the System Design round and an uncertain mark for the Java/OOP round. Overall, it was a valuable learning experience, and all interviewers were friendly and professional; it never felt like an interrogation.