Goldman Sachs | Associate | Interview Experience

I applied directly on the GS career portal. The job title was "Global Banking & Markets - Eq GSET Platform - Associate - Bengaluru". I received a HackerRank test link after 8 days, which the recruiter had mentioned needed to be completed within 24 hours in the email. There were a total of 5 rounds. A peculiar thing to note was that all communications (OA/Interviews) were sent by email and not by any phone calls.

Online Assessment (120 minutes)

1. Non-repeating digit in product - GFG Count numbers in range such that digits in it and it's product with q are unequal
2. Coding Wars - LC 1395. Count Number of Teams

I got an email the next day itself stating that I cleared the test and they are moving my candidature ahead for the next level of interview processes. They also asked for some basic details and mentioned that the opportunity is a complete WFO. After 8 days, I received an email to provide my next 2 weeks availability for the CoderPad round.

CoderPad Interview Round (60 minutes)

The interviewer began with the introduction and mentioned that he was among the sister teams for whom they were hiring. The coderpad was initially set up for the Java language, although in the email, I had mentioned C++ as my preferred language. Upon request, the interviewer allowed me to use C++ and mentioned that for the upcoming rounds to use Java. The interviewer was engaging and helpful.

1. Apache log file contains a list of IP addresses. Find the IP address with the highest frequency. If multiple IP addresses tie for the highest frequency, then return the values in a comma-separated format.
2. Analogous to LC 42. Trapping Rain Water (given as snow instead of rain).

For the trapping rain water problem, I initially gave the O(N) space approach, and since there was time remaining, he asked me to optimise and then gave the two-pointer approach, but could not complete the coding. The interviewer said that I was on the right track for the optimal solution, just had to consider a few edge cases and mentioned that he was anyway happy with the previous approach.

Note: By this time, all those who are preparing for GS Interviews would know that the Trapping Rainwater problem is one of Goldman Sachs' all-time favourite problems, so make sure to practice and be familiar with all approaches (brute, better, and optimal).

Overall, I was satisfied with my performance and hoped to receive a call for Superday. Soon, I got an email within 45 minutes post-interview asking about my availability for the next rounds, and I gave my preference for next week.

I was expecting all 3 interviews to happen the same day. However got the invite to Panel Interview for Round 1 and 2 back-to-back on the same day. They also mentioned that each interview is an eliminatory round. It was supposed to be 1 week later, but unfortunately, I fell sick, so it had to be pushed further 1 more week. One thing I liked very much about GS is their flexibility to schedule interviews based on the candidate's availability. My preparation for the next rounds was from the past 3 months Goldman Sachs interview experience found on the Leetcode Discuss section.

Panel Interview - Round 1 - DSA (60 minutes)

This round was taken by 2 VPs. Began with introductions, and the first interviewer gave a problem with very little context. You are given a list of cities and a function/API boolean isDirectConnected(c1, c2). Implement boolean isConnected(c1, c2). While coding, I had to ask follow-ups, and both interviewers were helpful enough to provide hints if I was stuck anywhere. I took around 40 minutes, including recognising it was a graph + DFS problem and writing pseudocode, as the interviewers also stopped me in between asking some why/hows on the code. Later, the interviewer mentioned that the graph could be bi-directional, and I had forgotten initially to keep a visited array, so I had fixed that too.

The second interviewer then asked a question that if we have 1B numbers and want to find the top 1M numbers, which data structure would you use and what would be the time complexity of it? I told that we would use a min-heap and the T.C. would be O(NLogK). However, the interviewer had a slightly different opinion around the TC, and the interview was wrapped up by me asking a question on the GBM team.

I felt that the interview went good and was honestly preparing to appear for the 'Software Engineering Practices' round. However, I was a bit shocked to receive the rejection mail 10 minutes after the interview. I am not sure how I have messed up, perhaps taking hints to solve. All I know is that I could not have done much better, although I could be more confident. Maybe it's god's plan, anyway, back to square 1!