[Offer] Goldman Sachs Summer Analyst 2026 – Full Interview Experience

🟢 Round 1 – Technical + HR Blend

This was my first-ever interview, and I was honestly nervous. But the interviewer made me feel at ease from the start.

❓ Question: Tell me something that's not in your resume

I spoke about my role as the Technical Head at QCM, where we manage the club’s website, conduct quizzes, and handle role-based access. This led to a long technical discussion.

💬 We discussed:

• How we store quiz data
• Use of Apprite as BaaS
• Role-Based Access (RBA)
• How quizzes are conducted through our platform

🧠 DSA Question:

Given two strings A and B, find the minimum length substring of A that contains all characters of B (order doesn't matter).

My Approach:

• Started with a brute-force O(n²) solution and wrote the code
• Then optimized it using two-pointer sliding window, explained the logic clearly
• The interviewer was happy with the explanation — no need to write the optimized code

We ended with a few HR questions like:

• Tell me about a time you faced conflict in a team
• How did you resolve it?

🔵 Round 2 – Core DSA Problem

This round focused purely on DSA.

❓ DSA Question:

Given a grid with a start and an end cell. Each cell has some coins. Find a path from start to end such that maximum coins are collected.

💡 My Approach:

• Proposed a DFS solution

• Interviewer asked: “Why not BFS?”

  • Explained that BFS is suitable for shortest path/minimum-based problems, but for maximization, DFS helps explore all possibilities

• Discussed time complexity: exponential due to recursion

• Then I proposed DP with memoization to optimize the solution

💻 Coding:

• Wrote a clean recursive + DP solution with minimal bugs
• Interviewer was impressed with my clarity and approach

🟡 Round 3 – HR + Analytical + Tech

Though it was the HR round, it included some technical discussion too.

Topics Covered:

• Deep dive into my Walmart Sparkathon project
• Asked what improvements I would make if I rebuilt it from scratch with experience

❓ Unexpected Twist:

• Gave me a problem without specifying how to solve it
• I solved it using a DSA approach, which he appreciated
• Then he asked me to solve the same using MySQL
  • I struggled at first, but after some hints and back-and-forth, I managed to solve it
  • He was satisfied with my willingness to learn and adapt

HR Questions:

• Why should we hire you?
• Why is Goldman Sachs important to you?

✅ Final Verdict: Selected

All three interviewers were chill, engaging, and helpful. They weren’t just testing coding skills — they were observing my communication, approach, and mindset.

💭 Final Thoughts

An interview isn’t just about getting the correct answer.
People often treat interviews as one-way evaluations, but they're actually conversations.

If you're solving a problem:

• Speak your thoughts aloud
• Keep the interviewer in the loop
• Ask for hints if you’re stuck — don’t let ego stop you

Interviewers are not there to trap you — they’re there to understand your approach and help you succeed.

Feel free to reach out if you're preparing for GS or any similar SDE interviews. Happy to help! 😊