Goldman Sachs | Associate
Summary
I interviewed for an Associate role at Goldman Sachs, completing an online assessment, several CoderPad rounds, and four superday rounds covering DSA, system design, and behavioral topics, and I was selected.
Full Experience
Recruiter Reached out via LinkedIn and asked to apply on carrers portal.
Online Assessment : Hacker Rank test with 3 DSA problems in 135 mins
- https://leetcode.com/problems/find-the-winner-of-an-array-game/
- https://leetcode.com/problems/reaching-points/
- https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-number-of-taps-to-open-to-water-a-garden/
Got Coderpad round scheduled after 3 weeks
Coder Pad : One Associate level interviewer joined and immediately jumper to DSA questions after brief Introduction
- https://leetcode.com/problems/median-of-two-sorted-arrays/
- https://leetcode.com/problems/shortest-subarray-with-sum-at-least-k/
Got Superday scheduled after 2 weeks
Superday Round 1 : Two Associate level interviewers joined and it was again a DSA round
- 25 Horses puzzle
- https://leetcode.com/problems/lru-cache/
- https://leetcode.com/problems/fraction-to-recurring-decimal/
Superday Round 2 : One Associate and One VP level interviewers joined and it was a System Design round (HLD + LLD)
- Design HLD for a Stock broker like Zerodha
- Scale it to handle 20 Million orders per day effectively
- LLD for whole order processing flow and strategies incorporated
Superday Round 3 : Two VP level interviewers joined and it was a DSA + System Design round (HLD + LLD)
- Started with a DSA problem - https://leetcode.com/problems/h-index-ii/
- Puzzles - 8 balls and First to 100
- Design HLD and DB design for a Portfolio Management System
Superday Round 4 : Hiring Manager Round, Same two people from round 3 joined
- Resume Grilling, Asked to explain end to end projects and counter questions on design choices
- Some Behavioural Questions
Verdict : Selected
Compensation : 40L Base + $2000 Joining/Relocation + 12L Bonus
Personal Details :
Years of Experience : 3 College : Tier 1 (IIT) Current CTC : 26L (24L Base + 2L Bonus) Current Organization : PBC
Suggestions :
- Prepare DSA well, continously participate in contests and practice majorly using leetcode since the questions are exactly same, even I checked the test cases were matching.
- Learn to write clean code with best practices, Interviewers take that seriously.
- Be vocal, keeping quite puts ad impression.
- Read, Understand and Learn Alex Vu system design book concepts
- Practice majorly used design patterns for LLD rounds.
Interview Questions (8)
Find the Winner of an Array Game
Reaching Points
Problem statement can be found at the linked LeetCode page.
Minimum Number of Taps to Open to Water a Garden
Problem statement can be found at the linked LeetCode page.
Median of Two Sorted Arrays
Shortest Subarray with Sum at Least K
Problem statement can be found at the linked LeetCode page.
LRU Cache
Problem statement can be found at the linked LeetCode page.
Fraction to Recurring Decimal
H-Index II
Problem statement can be found at the linked LeetCode page.
Preparation Tips
I prepared by continuously practicing DSA problems on LeetCode, participating in contests, studying system design concepts from Alex Vu's book, and reviewing design patterns for low‑level design rounds.