GeeksforGeeks Experience · Sep 2024

Goldman Sachs Interview Experience (Software Engineer 2022)

Interview Experience

I got this opportunity through LinkedIn, where a recruiter from Goldman Sachs messaged me that he liked my profile and wanted me to participate in the interview process, a...

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I got this opportunity through LinkedIn, where a recruiter from Goldman Sachs messaged me that he liked my profile and wanted me to participate in the interview process, and I accepted that opportunity. The recruiter called me by phone, asked for a convenient time to write the online assessment, and told me a particular date he sent me the exam link and said I can write within the next 5 days. Round - 1 ( Online Assessment): I wrote the online assessment which consists of two coding problems, the questions are : Similar to Coin Change problem. First I tried a normal recursive approach, just to see if all test cases passes, and it got

passed all the cases. But just for the safe side, I wrote the optimal approach using Dynamic Programming. Another Question is Count Connections in Matrix, I took a bit of time, but solved it finally. So finally, done with both questions with optimal solutions and submitted the assessment. After a few days, I got a call from the recruiter that they want to schedule the next Coder Pad round and I said my convenient time and politely scheduled on that date. Round - 2 ( Coder Pad Interview) : I got an invitation mail which consists of a Coder pad link along with a Zoom meet link. I joined the meeting on the allocated time. The interviewer was very cool and interactive. He told me about him and jumped from the coding section to the coder pad. I faced two questions in this round, where the questions are : The first question was First Non-repeating character in a string, I first told the brute force approach with nested for loops, told the time and space complexities, and optimized it using HashMap. The second question was similar to Unique Paths, I first told the brute force approach using DFS and optimized it using Dynamic Programming So finally solved both the questions and the interviewer was happy with my solutions. Interviewer as if I had any questions, and I asked about the company and work we do there. He kindly explained about that and was done with the coder pad interview. Round - 3 ( Technical Interview ) : Told to introduce myself and they introduced themselves. Asked questions related to Java and related Java8 features Asked to implement how can I find duplicate elements in list using Streams API. Asked a Coding Question, which related to Graphs, similar to starting and ending stations , trains kinda question. Finally done with this round. Round - 4 ( Technical Interview ) : Told to introduce myself and they introduced themselves. Asked questions related to Java and java8 Asked a coding question which is similar to House Robber ; Asked about the reason why I'm leaving my current company. Finally done with this round. Round - 5 (Technical Interview ) : Told to introduce myself and they introduced themselves. Asked about my previous work experience and the tech stack I used there. Based on the project I have done before, he asked me design question. Design something which does some operations using Multithreading. The interview went with question only, discussing about the approaches and some follow ups. Implemented the solution using Java Multi-threading Finally done with this round Round - 6 (Hiring Manager Interview) : He started by introducing himself and asked me to tell about myself starting from my academics along with my experience. Asked few questions about my previous experience and project I've done. About the tech stack I've worked on Asked about all the contributions at previous companies. Asked few Behavioral questions, like "why am I leaving current company??" etc.. Asked which tech stack I'm comfortable with, and which team do I want to join?? He asked some Java Questions Asked to Design Twitter, in high-level, he gave some time to take notes for that. I explained about the components I'm gonna use. He asked if I had any questions, and I asked few questions about company. and Finally done with this round Waiting for next step. . . . . . .

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About This Question

This is a candidate experience report from a goldman sachs interview for a swe role during the oa round reported in 2024.

It covers the following topics: Strings, Matrix, Dynamic Programming, Sql, Graph, Stack Queue, Recursion, Networking, Graphs, Hash Table, Stack .

About Goldman Sachs Interview Reports

This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at Goldman Sachs. LeakCode aggregates interview reports from 10+ sources, including 1Point3Acres, Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, Blind, Reddit, Indeed, and Nowcoder. Each report is translated where necessary, deduplicated against existing entries, and tagged by company, role, round type, and reporting date.

Use this question as one calibration data point, not a memorization target. Companies typically rotate their question pools every 2-4 months; the exact wording of a 2024 question may differ from what you encounter today. The underlying pattern, difficulty level, and follow-up depth at Goldman Sachs are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.

For broader preparation context, the Goldman Sachs interview process typically includes a recruiter screen, one or two technical phone screens, and a 4-5 round on-site loop covering coding, system design (at L4+ levels), and behavioral. Reports tagged on LeakCode show the round-by-round distribution and typical difficulty calibration. To browse questions filtered by round type and seniority, use the company hub linked above.

How To Practice This Type of Question

Solve similar problems on LeetCode under timed conditions (25-35 minutes per medium difficulty). The goal is pattern recognition: recognize the underlying technique (sliding window, two-pointer, BFS, memoized recursion, etc.) within 60-90 seconds of reading. Strong candidates verbalize their hypothesis out loud before coding, then iterate based on feedback. Weak candidates dive into implementation immediately, lose time on the wrong approach, and run out of time for follow-ups.

Companies update their question pools every 2-4 months. The exact wording of any given question may have been retired by the time you interview. Focus your prep on the pattern, not the specific problem. The patterns that appear in Goldman Sachs reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.

During Your Goldman Sachs Round

Apply the standard interview round template: clarify requirements (2-3 minutes), state your approach out loud and confirm direction with the interviewer (3-5 minutes), code with narration (15-25 minutes), test with concrete examples including edge cases (5 minutes), discuss optimization or trade-offs if time permits (5 minutes). This template is universally accepted across FAANG and adjacent companies; deviating from it produces weaker interviewer feedback signal.

The single most predictive failure mode in Goldman Sachs reports tagged "no hire": not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers are explicitly trained to weight this. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's written notes.