Goldman Sachs | VP | Bengaluru | May 2022 [Reject]

I recently interviewed for a VP role at Goldman Sachs in Bengaluru with 9 years of experience, currently working in another IB. The process spanned from February to June 2022, ultimately ending in a rejection after multiple follow-ups.

I was very interested in the tech organization I applied for and felt I would be a good fit, which was somewhat validated throughout the process as I spoke with various interviewers.

Round 1 - Exploratory Call

This was a generic discussion with a Senior VP from the technology area about my work experience, roles, and responsibilities. He also provided an overview of their tech area and the position.

Round 2 - DSA Coderpad

This was a coding screen round. The interviewer was very professional; she aimed for two questions within an hour. I successfully coded both questions, and all test cases passed. This interviewer was excellent in terms of discussions, approach, and test cases.

• The first question was a sliding window problem with strings, which I can't recall exactly, but it was a LeetCode medium.
• The second question was about finding the median of two sorted arrays.

After clearing this round, the recruiter informed me about three technical rounds followed by a Hiring Manager round, with each being an elimination round. I found it unusual that they couldn't specify whether rounds would be DSA, LLD, or HLD, which differed from my experience with other big tech companies.

Round 3 - Problem Solving

Unsure what to prepare for, I continued with my general DSA and System Design studies. This round had two interviewers.

• The first interviewer asked about scheduling jobs to optimize maximum completion based on time and priority. Despite asking for follow-up questions and examples, communication was difficult, and I didn't receive clear examples. I proceeded with a solution based on my understanding, though I suspect it wasn't exactly what she was looking for. The scope of the question also changed mid-interview, which complicated things further.
• The second interviewer, a sensible Senior VP from my exploratory call, asked about designing a recommendation system for the top 'x' movies based on prior ratings. I successfully came up with a solution, and we had a good discussion with follow-up questions, which he seemed pleased with. I again inquired about the nature of future rounds, but he deferred to the recruiter.

Round 4 - Design

Again, I went into this round without specific expectations. This round was taken by an analyst and an associate. It started late due to miscommunication, wasting about 10 minutes.

• The analyst asked me an LLD question about designing a stock exchange. I was able to answer and discussed various scenarios, including concurrency-specific follow-ups.
• During this, I got disconnected for 2 minutes due to a power outage, wasting more time.
• The associate then asked me to design the stories feature for social media apps. I clarified requirements and began discussing high-level system interactions and basic APIs. He interrupted me, focusing on system communication, so I explored options like HTTP calls, WebSockets, Push, and long-polling. He seemed dissatisfied and frequently interrupted me, possibly looking for a specific buzzword I wasn't using. When I moved to data storage, he again interrupted to revisit communication. The discussion felt argumentative, but I remained calm, answered his questions, and suggested alternatives.

Later, I learned from my sourcer (who was more candid than the recruiter) that the feedback for my previous round was positive for LLD, API design, and DB, but negative for system design. This struck me as odd since I designed the entire system. I was also told to expect heavy grilling in the next round.

Round 5 - Grill

This round had two interviewers. The first, from the same tech org, asked me to design a Rate Limiter. I guided him through the system, API, and data structure design. He asked a few follow-up questions and seemed largely onboard with my approach.

The second interviewer chose to continue with the same Rate Limiter problem, leading to a deep dive. I meticulously explained sample examples multiple times, patiently addressing all his queries. We discussed concurrency, storage options (temporary vs. permanent), complexity of calls, improvements, thresholds, and edge cases. He intensely grilled me, but I didn't mind as he seemed reasonable, and I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion.

After this, I expected a Hiring Manager round, as my interviews and conversations felt positive, and I was genuinely invested in the role and org. However, the recruiter provided no updates. After three weeks of follow-ups with both the sourcer and recruiter, I finally received a rejection, stating I wasn't suitable for the profile.

My conclusion is that interviewing well isn't always enough, especially if interviewers are immature or overly competitive. Also, the lack of clarity regarding round types (DSA/System Design) was a significant drawback compared to other companies.