Goldman Sachs Interview Experience For SDE (2024)

I received an opportunity through Naukri when a recruiter reached out, expressing interest in my profile and inviting me to participate in an online assessment. I accepted the opportunity, with the test scheduled for the following day.

Here are some tips based on my experience:

• If you have at least 1 year of experience and are seeking a job change, I highly recommend going through https://takeuforward.org/interviews/strivers-sde-sheet-top-coding-interview-problems/
  and solving each question.
• Additionally, prepare for puzzles, Java, and Spring Boot-related questions. Be ready to discuss the project you’re currently working on and how you tackle challenges when you encounter them.
• If the question level is medium-hard then, try to complete each question in 30 min as rounds 2,3 and 4 will be of 1 hour and in each round you will be asked to solve questions if you complete them on time, then be prepared to answer the follow-up questions.
• Even, If you know the approach to the question, go with brute force, dry run your approach on small test cases, and meanwhile also explain both time and space complexity and then slowly jump to the optimized approach.

About the interview process:

• Each interview consisted of two interviewers and all interviews took place on Coder Pad.
• There were a total of six rounds, with the emphasis on DSA at 70%, puzzles at 20%, and Java and Spring Boot-related questions at 10%.
• My first interview was on March 25th, and I received positive feedback afterwards. Subsequently, my next three rounds were scheduled for March 27th, each spaced two hours apart. Following these, I was scheduled for a Managerial Round on the same day.
• On that day, HR informed me of positive feedback for all my interview rounds.
• Finally, I received the offer letter by April 19th.

Now, let’s delve into each interview round:

Round – 1 (Online Assessment):

This was a 120-minute test consisting of two medium-hard-level coding questions.

Round – 2 (Technical Interview):

This was a 60-minute round where I introduced myself, as did the interviewers, and then we delved into coding questions:

• 1. First Unique character in a string https://leetcode.com/problems/first-unique-character-in-a-string/description/
  2. Compute Snowpac: Same as Trapping Rainwater
  https://www.csestack.org/snow-between-hills-coding-challenge/
  https://leetcode.com/problems/trapping-rain-water/description/
• I solved both questions, from brute force to optimized approaches, and the interviewer was satisfied. I also took the opportunity to ask questions about the company and its work.

Round – 3 (Technical Interview):

Another 60-minute round where I introduced myself, and then tackled:

• 1. Maximum sum path in the matrix from bottom-right to top left(reverse of GFG below question). https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/maximum-sum-path-in-a-matrix-from-top-left-to-bottom-right/amp/
  2. Find the Median from Sorted Arrays:https://leetcode.com/problems/median-of-two-sorted-arrays/description/
• Due to time constraints, I explained my optimized approach verbally rather than writing code, which the interviewer appreciated.

Round – 4 (Technical Interview):

This 90-minute round involved four coding questions:

• Told to introduce myself and they introduced themselves and jumped from the coding section to the coder pad.
  1 . Vector Implementation from scratch And was asked to write get(), add(), remove(), and size() and was asked time and complexity for each function.
  2. Find the sum of squares and was asked to write code in Java, I was not as familiar with Java code, but still, I was able to write the Java. E: 1,2,3 Expected Output: 15
  3. Fibonacci series (from brute force to the optimized approach)The interviewer
  wanted to know my thought process of how to jump from brute force to the optimized one and then he asked me to write every approach from brute force to optimized one
  4. No. Of stairs https://leetcode.com/problems/climbing-stairs/description/
  This question is the same as the Fibonacci series, but he still asked me, to check whether I was able to recognize redundant problems or not.
• Although I couldn’t achieve the desired time complexity for one question, the interviewer was satisfied with my efforts.

Round – 5 (Technical Interview):

A 30-minute round comprising one hard LeetCode question and two puzzles:

• Without any further introduction, he starts with the coding question.
  1. Find the median of the running stream of Integers https://leetcode.com/problems/find-median-from-data-stream/description/
  I explained my approach using the priority queue but He was not satisfied with my approach and moved to the puzzle.
  2. Puzzle: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/puzzle-21-3-ants-and-triangle/amp/
  3. Puzzle: https://www.mathsisfun.com/puzzles/weighing-9-balls-solution.html

Round -6 (Hiring Manager Interview):

The hiring manager began by introducing herself and then asked about my recent project at Barclays. We discussed Spring Boot and API-related questions, followed by a coding question:

• After that, she jumped to the coding question
  1. Reduce the string by removing K consecutive identical characters https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/reduce-the-string-by-removing-k-consecutive-identical-characters/amp/
• Finally, there were some behavioural questions, and I had the opportunity to ask questions about the company.
  Overall, the process was challenging yet rewarding, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.