I appeared for GS interview . Had the most terrible interview experience so far. I am writing this so that it might help other people who plan to interview with GS in future.
The suffering started in April'22 and ended in Septemeber'22.
4th April - Got a linkedIn In-mail from recruiter and she asked about basic details. On same day she send a hackerank link. The link had deadline of 2 days. I completed it on time and passed all test cases.
18th April - Didn;t got any response so I send a follow-up e-mail to recruiter to check my result. Received positive feedback and was told someone would contact me soon regarding interviews.
2nd May - Got a call from Recruiter asking for availability of phone screen round. Scheduled it for 6th May.
6th May- 3 Easy questions were asked in Phone screen round. Solved all of them in 25 minutes. (question - Median of 2 sorted arrays, reverse each word of sentence, some question on hashmap and set)
11th May- Followed up with recruiter . Got a positive feedback .
16th May- Got call from recruiter asking for availability for 3 back to back rounds on Comming friday. Was not available so ask them to move it to next friday. This was the only rescheule request made by me.
26th May- Got call from Recruiter again to confirm for availablity. I agreed to give interviews the next day. Got a mail saying first 2 rounds have been scheduled. Third round will be scheduled based on result of first 2
27th May - Gave 2 interviews (4 DSA questions on Graph, BFS, Trees and array). Out of 4 questions asked in these 2 interviews, I was able to solve 3 optimally and 1 suboptimally with hints. Thought that the round didn't went well and i would be rejected .Didn;t received any communicaton for 3rd round till 4:00PM.
27th May - Recruiter called on 4PM and said panel is waiting. By that time i was not at home so i requested to reschedule it to next week. (My second Mistake).
3rd June - Followed up with recruiter to schedule 3rd round of interview. They said someone would reach out to me in few days. They Called back after an hour and told me the profile was on hold and if i want i can appear for another superday comming friday for another team which i refused.
9th June - Got a call from recruiter that they are proceeding ahead with 3rd round and asked for dates. They told it will be LLD + DSa so i asked 3 days for preparation.
15th June - Gave interviews and they went well . Not asked much difficult question.
17th June - Got a call from recruiter that they want to schedule HM round . I gave the dates.
22nd June - Gave HM round. Basic behavioural questions and questions on past projects. Some java concepts were also asked. I felt round went decent.
At this point things started to get worse. Didn't receive any call from them for 2 weeks. No reply to my calls or follow up emails.
8th July - Got a document form them asking for compensation details for last 3 years. No other phone call or e-mail. Submitted docs on same day.
22nd July - Got a call from recruiter that the division i was interviewing for has reduced headcount and have a hiring freeze. I was shocked to hear this. She asked me if i would be willing to appear for different team. I would need to give another superday. By this time i had lost my cool. I told her i would not give all rounds again.
22nd July - Same recruiter called after an hour and said that the new team would like to have just 2 rounds each of 30 minutes. I agreed.
25th July - Gave the round . It was an HM round kind of. Not much technical questions. Didn't need to code anything.
27th July - Another round was scheduled with VP from NY. I joined but the interviewer didn't turn up this time. Got a mail next day that they will reschedue it for 29th July.
29th July- This round went for an hour although recruiter said it will be of 30 minutes .Interview asked questions related to multithreading , deadlock , cs concepts, LLD problem . Round went well.
5th August - Got compensation form again. Filled it again and shared it with HR the same day. No further phone calls or e-mails.
10th August - Got a call from Recruiter that they would need to have 1 last discussion with the MD. It would be a 15 minute call. Had it on the same day.
11th August - Got the compensation form again. Didn't filled it again this time and forwarded the previously filled form only.
22nd August - Got a call from Recruiter to discuss compensation and expectations, any competing offers etc.
13th September - Got the final numbers and offer letter the same day. (Base-33, Bonus-6 , YOE=2.8, current Fixed: 25)
14th September - By this time i was already on Notice and had 2 competing offers of TC around 60. They denied to match that and said there BGV will also take atleast month before which they can't onboard.
16th September - Offer Rejected.
Please be aware that GS process is very slow and wil drain you mentally. Be very carefull if you are interviewing with them on your Notice period. It is possible that by the time they revert back, you would have already joined somewhere. There were 2 interviewers in each round and it totally depends on your luck whether you get good or rude interviewer.
The interviews are not that tough and focus more on DSA and Java concepts.
I would advise all to never wait for a company to revert back , Just keep on giving interviews. With the current market slowdown and hiring freezes in almost every company, be very cautious and have more than 1 offer atleast to even resign.