All GoldMan Sachs Interview Experiences | NewGrad |Intern| 2021-2022

Question

All interview experiences GoldMan Sachs of  can be found using the tag "goldman-sachs_interview_experience" in the search bar.

Here is the link : https://www.desiqna.in/tag/goldman-sachs_interview_experience

Answer 1

All interview experiences GoldMan Sachs of  can be found using the tag "goldman-sachs_interview_experience" in the search bar.

Here is the link : https://www.desiqna.in/tag/goldman-sachs_interview_experience

Answer 2

Round 1 was an online test hosted on HackerRank. It was composed of 3 questions –
1. Coding Question (20 marks, partial marking for testcases) : Was based on bit manipulation, where we had to create ‘super-bitstrings’ for a sequence of numbers based on a given set of rules. I implemented a simple BFS for all possible super-bitstrings and was able to pass all test-cases.
2. 8 CS MCQs (10 marks each, -2 for incorrect) : Questions were based on Graphs, Dynamic Programming, Complexity Analysis, Grammar Parsing, etc. I was able to do solve most of these.
3. 10 Quant MCQs (10 marks each, -2 for incorrect) : These were based on Probability, Statistics, Combinatorics, ML fundamentals, Differential Equations, etc. I couldn’t do many questions here, but that was the case for most people.

40 students were shortlisted for F2F interviews wherein different candidates faced different number of rounds of interviewing by a number of panels. I, personally, had 6 rounds.

1st Interview – (40 mins)
1. Maximum and minimum regions that can be formed by making ‘n’ cuts on a cake in either 2D or 3D. He first made me tell him my approach and then asked me to derive the general case formula by either observing the pattern or by solving the recursion that I had come up with.
2. n ropes are given and the cost of joining 2 ropes is proportional to the sum of their lengths. I had to find the minimum total cost incurred in order to create 1 single rope from them. I suggested a greedy approach, wherein I used a Min-Heap for my implementation.
3. Since I had mentioned Min-Heap in the previous question, he asked me about the Time Complexities of different operations on the heap. He then gave me an unsorted array and asked me to sort it using Heap-Sort. Basically, he wanted me to write the entire code for insertion, deletion and retrieval from a heap on paper, which I did. After which, he asked me to do the heap operations in-place, i.e., use O(1) space. Then he asked me to compare MergeSort, QuickSort and HeapSort. He asked me why heaps aren’t used as abundantly as BSTs for which I answered that the Invariant in a heap for the comparison of two elements is very weak as compared to BSTs (Thanks, MIT OCW!).

2nd Interview – (20 mins)
This round was a bit more focused on my Resume and my interests in Computer Science.He asked me 3 questions, one based on Binary Search and another based on basic Array Manipulation. Third one was the following and had to be solved in logarithmic time.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12238241/find-local-minima-in-an-array
He told me a few things about the work culture at GS, his experience there, and what projects do interns generally work on.

3rd Interview – This was the HARDEST OF THEM ALL and went on for 2 hours. The panel consisted of 2 guys.
(a) I was asked 4 questions and they wanted me to communicate whatever was going on my mind to them and then code the entire thing on paper(literally, the entire thing!).
1. Currency Arbitrage – Solved it by taking negative logs of exchange ratios and treating them as weights of edges between nodes(currencies) in my graph and finding a negative cycle using Bellman-Ford.
2. A question on string concatenation following a given set of complex rules. It took me quite some time to come up with a naive, recursive solution and after writing in down, he asked me to optimize. I drew the recursion tree and observed Overlapping Subproblems and hence, used tabulation to improve the Time Complexity. He was happy with my approach. We then discussed the approaches to some common DP problems such as Edit Distance, Knapsack etc.
3. He asked me how does a compiler determine the order of compilation tasks to perform in makefiles and I immediately answered Topological Sorting. He then made me write the code on paper and a few questions on why does the method work and its complexity.
4. An easy question on Binary Search. I had to find the frequency of a certain element in a sorted array in worst case O(lgN) time.

(b) The second Panelist then looked at my resume and since I had mentioned an ongoing project on Server Architectures and Cloud Computing, he made me explain the approach I was going to use to simulate Network Traffic and then delved into the advantages and disadvantages of the transformation from Traditional Architectures -> Virtualization -> Containerization -> Serverless Architectures(FaaS). He wanted me to compare & contrast them and give examples after which he asked me to draw roughly – the layering of hardware, host OS, applications in each of the technologies.

4th Interview – (45 mins)
The interviewer was an alumni and so we had a brief chat on the clubs/departments I had joined and other extra-curriculars. After that, she asked me a few questions, all of which I was able to answer.
1. Was based on Strategy : We have a stack of n coins and 2 players. In each turn, a player can remove either 1, 2 or 3 coins from the stack. Assuming that both players play optimally and the player to empty the stack wins, what constraints should be put on n such that the player who plays first always wins.
2. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4325200/find-the-majority-element-in-array.
O(n) time and O(1) space solution expected.
3. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/closest-palindrome-number-whose-absolute-difference-min/
4. https://www.hackerrank.com/challenges/find-the-running-median/

5th Interview – (40 mins)
I was asked what language am I proficient in and I said Java. Then, he asked me what all Data Structures I had used in Java, and I mentioned ArrayLists, Stacks, Priority Queues, HashMaps, TreeMaps, HashSets.
1. Given a List of Objects, wherein each object may or may not be another list of objects, which may or may not be another list of objects and so on, write code to print the contents of all non-list objects.
2. There is a dynamic stream of tuples consisting of transaction data(transaction id, value, names, etc.). After every tuple comes in, I need to print the ‘k’ Maximum transactions based on their values existing in the stream currently and the Amortized Cost should be O(1). I used a priority queue. After this, variations were asked.
(a) What if ‘k’ is changing?
Repopulate the priority queue every single time k changes and store all existing tuples in a HashMap from which they can be referred.
(b) If transaction values are same, we want to compare according to ids. How do you implement that?
Override default compareTo() logic by making the tuple(class in Java) implement Comparable Interface.

6th Interview – (45 mins)
No coding questions were asked in this round. I was asked to explain each and every major point that I had mentioned on my resume and we had a discussion on every one of those points for 10-15 min. For the projects, I was asked for their detailed implementation and use-cases.

Finally, I was selected for the Internship!

Answer 3

I would like to share my GS interview experience with the prospect of helping upcoming batches.

Round 1 –
Resume based shortlisting – Basically add your projects related to Machine Learning and coursework related to Math. GS is one of the companies which reviews resume carefully (At least I think so :P), reason being me selected even after a low CPI. Around 250 to 300 students were shortlisted from resume for second round.

Round 2 –
Test on HackerRank. It included three sections with 45 min for each section. Coding questions (+20, -0) were to be solved in hosted compiler, some were integer type questions to be filled in the blanks (+10, -0, upto 2 decimal places) and some were MCQ (+10, -3).

Programming (Networking, Coding) – DSA revision would go a long way here, believe me, as there were direct questions on complexity of well-known algorithms and postfix, prefix expressions (Stack). 2 coding questions were asked. Be careful, optimized code is the way to go here as your solution may result in TLE for most examples.

Quant – Questions on basic aptitude like cattle grazing a circular field tied at a pole with rope and dice rolling probability were asked. Also some questions on expectation value, covariance, correlation and some matrices, determinant problems. I would recommend revising Prob Stats and Linear Algebra course if time permits.

Data Science – ML theory will help a lot. Questions were quite conceptual as they demanded theoretical knowledge like what to do to compensate for missing data. Some of them had 4 statements and correct ones have to be selected.

You have to do well in any two of the three sections,but an overall high score will increase your chances of getting selected easily by smooth interviewing. Also interviewing preference is set on the score in test. Here around 60 students were selected for next round, but beware as most of them are selected just in case. Because some of my batch mates couldn’t get another round of interview after their first mistake. When it comes to tests, higher you score, the better to leave a little load for last rounds (Some of us aren’t good at conversations after all).

Round 3 –
Here comes the loads of interviews at 6:00 am. Around 5 to 6 interviews if you get lucky. Although lesser number doesn’t mean you are rejected. They try to find the best fit department for you. Be punctual guys. Believe me they are there on time. And get a good night’s sleep. I tried to sit in as many companies as possible. I had a test up till 2:00 am that night. I was sleepy head all the time (they were considerate and sympathized for me, worked in a positive way for telling hard working attitude) as I couldn’t get proper sleep and had to wake up at 5:35 am (1st December chills of Kanpur) to check interview schedule and rush to venue meanwhile tying knots and combing hair, putting some deodorant and assuring my mom that I have woken up and trying not to fake it at all.

1st interviewer asked me a question on convex hull. Basically write a code to connect points in a way that they generate least area closed figure and encompasses all the given points. At first I couldn’t answer it. 6:00 am and you are asking me convex optimization, you must be kidding, right!!! (although it is a standard problem which I came to know about a little later in canteen with my friends who told me that it was so easy and I had to tell that hell yeah! I passed it with flying colors.)

Then he reverted back to a simpler problem. Good old problem playing number game with your friend to select any of the number between 1 to 3. Whoever reaches 20 first, wins. You have to tell the strategy to win the game. Basically, you start with your position at 20 and recursively think the problem to ensure that you end up at 16 (problem specific) before so that your friend ends up at any number between 17 to 19 and so on solve for 16.

2nd interviewer asked me a question on calculating variance, about gaussian distribution and something about my internship.
They won’t let me go for other companies in between which is a good sign for anyone if they are calling you back again. If not, don’t sit there, try somewhere else because they won’t tell you till end to leave. If you really want to get an interview, try to get in touch with organizer guy from company’s side.

3rd were these really cool dudes who started of with a matrix problem where each element was sum of row^2 and e^column. Now I had to prove something about equality of sum of elements that I don’t clearly remember but ultimately he would drive the result to generalization of function of row and column numbers.

The other one asked me a puzzle about two carts placed on a track with sensor below them. You can start cart with specific speed but afterwards you can control the motion only when cart passes sensor and when it leaves again you have no control over cart whatsoever. How to cause a collision between the two of them? They were quite helpful as I couldn’t quite articulate the problem properly. They helped me to get a hang of otherwise very simple problem (Talk to them all the time, they help you out a lot). They showed quite an interest in my low CPI (Prepare good and “genuine” reasons for it, they come really handy).

4th interviewers were really senior. They asked me about general stuff like my interns and interests. They were quite fascinated by my “Interest” in finance and “Global Markets”  (Please don’t fake it, instead try to make a habit out of it, works like a charm in every interview if you get good at it). Then they asked me about Yelp dataset challenge and NLP featured in my AI project. They asked some basic questions about libraries featured in Scikit (Python Library on Machine Learning Techniques). Finally they asked me about flash crash in stock market related to another project in intern.

Then came a senior from my department who was in my hall too, working at GS. He asked me if I had any interest left in Electrical (Apparently that was my department for the whole time which had no role whatsoever this whole time, even in eligibility where it was open for all). He was really cool and talking to me in campus lingo. After that he asked me a question in data structures to which I knew best approach but I chose to start from higher complexity. Then “clicked” the lower complexity solution which was not right. Finally I came to an approach using tree which was not the solution he wanted but he couldn’t find flaw in my solution. Then the row sorted and column sorted matrix problem of finding an element came. Starting from highest complexity then lower and then lower. I told him all possible solution except the lowest complexity in which I demanded some hint because I “couldn’t think of any possible solution”. He helped me out and finally I told the solution starting from bottom left instead of top right (Acting recommended only for experts, don’t try if you are not 100% sure that you can fake it :P).

After this whole torture which went on till 11:30 am (they won’t let me go to any other company), they finally called me in and told me that they were “interested” and would like to “meet” me soon. Instructions were clear and then they asked me if I am going to appear for any other company to which I gave an “honest” answer.

Answer 4

July,2021

Goldman Sachs came for recruiting students for the New Analyst profile. Following is a brief description of the process.

Round 1 (Online Test) : 3 hrs
Online test was conducted on the Hackerrank platform and consisted of objective and coding questions. It was divided into three sections : Programming, Quantitative Ability and Data Science and had separate timers for each section.
Following were the two coding questions:
https://practice.geeksforgeeks.org/problems/ugly-numbers2254/1
https://practice.geeksforgeeks.org/problems/number-formation3506/1

Focus was mainly on writing efficient code.

Round 2 (Personal Interviews): Multiple rounds (approx 30 mins each)
There were two or more rounds of personal interviews. Questions were mainly asked from Probability and Statistics (difficult), programming and algorithms (moderate) and resume-specific. Very few HR Questions were also asked.

Probability:
1. Monty Hall problem and its variations
2. Probability of two / three points lying on the same side of a semicircle
3. Probability of breaking a rope into three pieces such that the sides form a triangle
4. Two persons are supposed to meet a spot in a time interval of one hour. The person who comes first will wait for a maximum of 15 minutes for the second person. What is the probability that they will meet?

Coding:
1. Implement an LRU Cache
2. Version control system for Queue Data Structure
3. Subset Sum problem
4. Hash Table and collision resolutions
5. Given a sorted array find the element whose value is same as its index.

HR:
1. Why GS?
2. Why should we hire you?

Resume specific questions.
Interviewers are friendly and they give hints during the process. Always let them know how you are trying to approach the problem so that they can help you better.

All the best.