Goldman Sachs Interview Experience (On-Campus)

Internship drive started on my campus in August, 2020. Most of my friends and I spent the previous 3 to 4 months preparing for these rigorous interview processes. From the starting phase of preparation to the ending phase of grabbing an offer, it is an experience worth remembering. I sincerely hope that the lessons learned during this time are helpful to the students preparing for or appearing in the interview processes for the summer internship in software engineering roles.

Preparation phase

Students prefer different sites for practicing and brushing up their skills. It would help if you are already familiar with coding in a language and have given some kind of coding contests before. I personally found the following sources helpful during my preparation:

1. InterviewBit: This is the best site for doing quality questions. I found the timer on a question concept really helpful. Try and attempt every question of every bucket by yourself. I found the DP buckets quite difficult, but try not to skip them. Almost every company will ask one or two, maybe more, questions of DP.
2. GeeksforGeeks: After completing InterviewBit, I started a free practice course on gfg. The learn section of each topic in this course was worth studying. After completing the questions, there were 5 virtual contests with good problems. One might practice the must do coding questions on gfg instead.
3. LeetCode: I gave many mock interviews on LeetCode starting in mid July. These give you the experience of a real coding round. I would suggest giving one each day after you are done practicing the data structures part.

Other than the coding practice, study course subjects asked during the interviews. These include Operating System, Object Oriented Methodologies, Computer Networks, Database Management System etc. Companies always ask questions based on these.

The recruitment process

The process began with the screening of students by the coding cum mcq round followed by 3 interview rounds. I had appeared for the interviews of two companies before, so pretty much had an idea of the flow of the entire process.

Round-1

This was an online assessment on the HackerRank platform with tab and web-proctoring enabled. The test consisted of five sections with an allotted time for each, out of which reaching the cutoff of at least 3 sections was compulsory for further consideration. The total duration of the test was 135 minutes. The first section consisted of two DSA coding questions of 30 minutes in total. The second section was of a dynamic programming question with a 45 minutes time limit. Third and fourth sections consisted of multiple choice questions. The fifth was a subjective one with two general questions. Around 30 students were shortlisted for the second round using CGPA + Round-1 score as the criteria. The further rounds were conducted on Zoom Meetings and CodePair.

Round-2

This was a technical interview round. Although many of us had different experiences depending on the interviewer, mine was mainly based on Java. I was asked to code some programs and answer some application and theoretical questions based on HashMap, Stack, Heap, String Pool and some other concepts. Other than that, the interviewer asked some questions from memory management in operating systems. This round went on for about an hour. The students selected were called for Round-2.

Tip — (Company specific) Make sure you are familiar with not only the Object Oriented concepts, but also the syntactic concepts of Java if you mention the same on your resume, highly dependent on the interviewer though.

Round-3

This was a coding based interview round. I was asked a question based on dynamic programming. The interviewer was not only interested in the code, but also the exact step-by-step working of the program. I ended up making a table for the parameters computed using DP. The next question was a modification to the previous one and I was expected to modify the code accordingly. This round went on for about 40–45 minutes.

Tip — Most of the time you will not be asked to run your code and sometimes only a pseudo-code is needed. In such a scenario, communication plays a vital role. Explain the working of your code to the interviewer clearly.

Some students were selected based on these two interview rounds only. Some were called for the next round.

Round-4

This was a resume based interview. I was asked to explain the projects mentioned in my resume and their implementation. Other than this, some HR interview questions were asked. This round took about 20–25 minutes.

Tip — Make sure you are familiar with the tools used and know the implementation of the projects mentioned in your resume. If any project is group-based, specify the same on the resume as well and explain your contribution to the interviewer. For the HR interview questions, try being creative and convincing.

Results were announced the same day and I got the offer.

A happy Squidward indeed!

Takeaways:

1. The most important one is to stay calm throughout the process. It is rather a long and tiring one, stay motivated. Being over-energetic is also not advisable. Speak well but do not forget to listen well.
2. Having a crystal-clear understanding of the question asked is of prime importance. Ask your interviewer to explain the question again if needed. Take your time to come up with a good approach instead of directly running to the code.
3. Work out the solution to your problem loudly. Walk the interviewer through your entire thought process of coming up with the solution. If you are not asked to run the code, focus on explaining the working well.
4. If you do not know the answer to a question, be honest and inform the interviewer about some related concept you are familiar with. It is important to not give up, but at the same time do not give made-up wrong answers.
5. Eat well, sleep well, prepare well and do not let any failure get the better of you. Remember your hard work does pay off!