Goldman Sachs Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews
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Updated Nov 22, 2011 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 21 ratings 
“Difficult” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 21 ratings
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| 1–10 of 21 Goldman Sachs Interviews | Sort by |
Software Engineer at Goldman Sachs
Posted Nov 22, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Received and Declined Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in Jersey City, NJ (took 2 months)
Had a one on one interview which lasted 30 minutes. I then was placed on "hold" for about a month and was then finally told to come into their NY/NJ offices for a super day where I interviewed 5 separate times with two different teams. Each had a unique style asking. Some coding on paper, some more fit oriented.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview, a Skills Test and a Drug Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Goldman Sachs
Posted Oct 18, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2009 in New York, NY (took a day)
Goldman Sachs came to my school looking for Software Engineers at a job fair. They took resumes then called back those who they wanted to interview. I got a call for an interview that same day and scheduled it for the next day. They gave me a skills test and asked some behavioral interview questions. I was told they would contact me in the next two weeks to know if I did or didnt make it to the next round of interviews (super day in NY). But I never got a call back until AFTER the deadline so maybe they forgot about me..i dont know?
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Goldman Sachs
Posted Aug 23, 2011 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Aug 2011 in Bangalore (India) (took 2 days)
Round 3 :
Here is where the real thing starts. Technical interview.
First I was called and taken to room in the first floor. 2 people were sitting in 1 tech guy and other whom I presume to be HR dept lady. I was welcomed and I shook hands with both of them. This is the first impression – your hand shake. If you are not strong and confident it shows in your handshake. So practice a bit of hand-shaking to see if you get a firm grip cause a tight squeeze would hurt on the other hand.
Well, the first and standard question in every one of the companies is – Tell me about yourself. I personally started it from my higher secondary and proceeded to college with concentration on computers. Then I told my hobbies related to computers and then my general hobbies.
Next, the questions were completely from my resume. The tech guy kept asking me questions and the HR lady took notes about me. The first one was about database design – The main focus was in bridge pattern, which I did not get at first but finally landed. Next it was followed by maze solving robot project that I had to explain. Then I had to design the databases that I did for another web-crawler project and explain the working and optimization of the database with respect to scaling when huge amounts of data are being crawled. Then a few follow up questions were there with respect to how the php code worked. Then I had to explain about CRON jobs and their utility.
Next he asked me number of squares in a 8x8 chess board. It might have taken me some time to solve this, but since this question was asked to the candidate who went before me, I had asked what the answer was from him. So I quickly answered but also accepted that the question was familiar. Ans is ( 1^2 + 2^2 + ….. + n^2 )
Then it moved to architecture. The question was what would you expect when you start a project ?
Ans : My answers were based on requirements, vision of the project. I questioned about versioning, time to market and the impact of the project on the organization. I gave my views on how this would be carried out with respect to a normal project vs a research project. The HR lady was impressed.
Follow up : But she was expecting something else. She asked me to think a bit harder on that.
Ans : I immediately knew that she was expecting answers with respect to time-management. So I started to talk on this aspect. The breaking of problem statement into sub problems and finally into indivisible unit modules and their implementation and how I would make sure I calculated time precisely.
Follow up : Now she asked what you would suggest to clients w.r.t time when they are in a hurry ?
Ans : I talked about 5 minutes about the reputation of the organization and that I would never put in jeopardy at any stage with any stupid decisions and made sure they understood that promises are important in corporate society.
Since I moved to clients they started questioning about what the client expects from the project ?
Ans : I told them that I have worked with real clients before and that they do not care about the technical aspects of the functionality and only go by the look and feel of stuffs.
Follow Up : This was followed up with questions as to how you would react if they only want front-end and do not care about how the back end work ?
Ans : I replied that I would maintain my professional aspects in all forms of work. Despite client’s pressure that I would maintain the quality in all times. Then I told how to pull back work to check if we are proceeding in the right direction and that if clumsiness has crept in due to time pressure.
Any real time problems faced In projects ?
Ans: Saying that one of the members did not work and that you did all the work does not show off you are great at all. So avoid such answers.
My answer was with respect of synchronization. How integrations caused problems in the completed modules with one of a real time example and how I solved it using skype to synchronize work with my mates.
Follow Up : Questioned about integration problems ?
Ans : Spent a couple of minutes explaining about regression testing.
Since I spoke about synchronization the tech guy asked me about thread-safety ?
Ans : Straight forward answer to this. I explained the ins and outs of threads and the merits and de-merits of every method.
Since I told my interest was web-designing, he asked why divs in HTML ?
Ans : Straight-forward answer as to how divs are better than table layouts.
That was end of round 3 and I had to answer a few just-for-a-formality questions and came out. I thought I had made a good impression.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview, a Group/Panel Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Goldman Sachs
Posted Jul 8, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2010 (took 7+ weeks)
7-8 rounds of phone interview
one face to face round
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Background Check.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Goldman Sachs
Posted Mar 30, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Aug 2010 in New York, NY (took a day)
There was a tel phone interview initially. After that I was called for an in-person interview - (5 rounds).
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Goldman Sachs
Posted Mar 28, 2011
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Mar 2011 in Salt Lake City, UT (took 2 weeks)
Interesting thorough. The first two phone screens were back to back and focused on basic Java , database, unix quesitons. There were also open ended questions about your problem solving skills and performance tuning questions.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Goldman Sachs
Posted Mar 16, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Mar 2010 in Salt Lake City, UT (took a day)
Was interviewed by 8 different people. Basically about Java skills and Linux knowledge.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Goldman Sachs
Posted Mar 1, 2011
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5.0
Very Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jan 2011 in London, England (United Kingdom) (took 2 days)
Be yourself and do not fall into the trap of provocation
Interview Questions
How many cubes will be visible?
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview, an IQ/Intelligence Test, a Skills Test and a Background Check.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Goldman Sachs
Posted Feb 20, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2010 in New York, NY (took a day)
Applied for an Application developer and got interviewed for a Systems Engineer
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Goldman Sachs
Posted Oct 9, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Feb 2008 in New York, NY (took 2 days)
The interview consisted of an phone interview and a day long interview process.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
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