Goldman Sachs

1. 1

   Online test

   Online assessment: DSA coding, MCQs and a situational question
   HackerRank60 min14 questionseasyeliminatory

   Section	Qs	Min	Topics
   Coding	3	-	trees, graphs, backtracking, arrays
   MCQ aptitude and technical	-	-	data structures, sorting, output prediction, basic aptitude
   Situational / culture	1	-	short written response on handling a situation

   basic DSA · trees · graphs · backtracking · arrays · sorting

   Question count 14 stated by one account; coding items described as 10-15 min each. Easy to medium DSA. Interview shortlist was based on resume plus test, with a cap on shortlists per day.

2. 2

   Pre-placement talk

   Meet-and-greet session with shortlisted candidates and interviewers
   30 minoffline

   company and role overview · questions about process

   Not evaluative, labelled as GD in the template. One account counts 28 shortlisted candidates present.

3. 3

   Technical interview

   Technical interview A (pen and paper)
   30 minoffline

   resume projects · graphs · BFS and DFS · binary search · heaps · Dijkstra variant · data structures · ML models used in projects

   Two technical rounds plus one HR/culture round, each 30-35 min, order varied between accounts (HR came first for one candidate). Interviewers tailored DSA to the strengths candidates claimed.

4. 4

   HR interview

   HR / culture-fit interview
   30 minoffline

   why this firm · what motivates and demotivates you · challenges faced · shift from core branch to software · past research project · questions to the interviewer

   Interviewer invited candidate questions first. Culture round weighted as seriously as technical ones. Non-CSE candidates asked why they chose software.

5. 5

   Technical interview

   Technical interview B: OOP design, caching, DP (pen and paper)
   30 minoffline

   OOP design · inheritance · polymorphism · caching · LRU cache · dynamic programming

   Code written on paper and explained aloud; one interviewer was less responsive on purpose, apparently to test composure.

Advice from candidates

29 pieces of advice, in their own words. Names removed.

• Read about the company and the role beforehand, as asking thoughtful questions matter a lot.

  preparation · 2025-26

• Mock interviews are a must for practice.

  preparation · 2025-26

• Practice coding in a pen-and-paper format. Stay calm and confident during the interview.

  interview · 2025-26

• Make sure to write clean code on the paper and explain your logic clearly while writing. Always start by discussing the brute force approach and its time complexity, and then move on to the optimal solution.

  interview · 2025-26

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Question patterns reported

The kind of problem, not the problem itself. Our practice questions are written to match these patterns.

• Onlinebalanced tree insertion with rotations
• OnlineDFS with backtracking on a graph
• Technicalimplement graph with traversals from scratch
• Technicalpivot search then median in rotated sorted array
• Technicalrunning minimum of a stream with constant-time access
• Technicalconstrained path search on graph modelled on financial products
• Technicalshortest path with custom constraint rules
• Technicaldesign class hierarchy for a real-world domain on paper
• Technicalexplain caching then implement an LRU cache
• Technicalmax profit with at most K transactions via DP
• Onlinelargest connected group of ones in binary grid
• Onlinerandom-walk expected steps on square corners
• Onlineprobability of reaching a target score
• Technicalfind repeated element in bounded array with space limits
• Technicalmin of two integers without branching
• Technicalexpected steps/time in random walks
• Technicaloptimal queue position for first birthday match
• Technicalminimum comparisons to find top-k elements
• Technicalprove equal sums for balanced colouring of grid
• Onlinehard DP or graph problem
• Onlinemoral scenario about a cheating friend
• Technicalstore and transfer very large text files
• Technicalinterval scheduling greedy
• Technicaltrapping rain water with stack