Analyst (SDE) at Goldman Sachs

How it went

What they would tell you

How to prepare

Their background

Round by round

1. 1

   OA60 min

   I applied via referral, which helped fast-track my process. After a few days, I received an email from HR inviting me to take the Online Assessment (OA), consisted of two medium-level DSA questions.

2. 2

   Coding60 min

   The questions asked were “Shortest Subarray to be Removed to Make Array Sorted” and “Number of Islands.” I began with the first one but hit a bit of a mental block at the start. I fumbled a little while figuring out the edge cases, but I made sure to explain my thought process clearly and kept asking questions to clarify the constraints. That helped me get on the right track, and once the approach clicked, I was able to code it quickly. Then I moved to the second question, Number of Islands, which was a standard flood fill problem. Since I had solved it earlier, I wrapped it up in just around 5 minutes.

   • Shortest Subarray to be Removed to Make Array Sorted
   • Number of islands
3. 3

   Codind DSA60 min

   This one-hour round with two interviewers went pretty smoothly. They asked me two questions, Gas Station and Minimum Window Substring. I started with Gas Station and used a greedy approach, I calculated total fuel and kept checking if the current fuel ever dropped below zero. If it did, I just reset the starting point and moved on. Once that was done, I moved to Minimum Window Substring. For that, I used a sliding window technique, first expanding the window to include all required characters and then shrinking it from the left to find the smallest valid substring. Both questions were fairly standard, and I made sure to walk the interviewers through my thought process as I coded.

   • Gas Station
   • Minimum Window Substring
4. 4

   Software Engineering Practices60 min

   The moment I joined the call, it was clear this round was going to be all about fundamentals and clarity of thought. It was taken by two interviewers, and the focus was mainly on resume-based discussions. We started with database topics, they asked me to explain sharding vs partitioning, when to use which, and what trade-offs each one brings. They also asked about the SQL EXPLAIN keyword, diving into the types of scans it shows and the pros and cons of each. After that, we shifted gears to JavaScript, where I was asked to implement a debouncing function and explain how it can be optimized. I made sure to walk them through my reasoning, kept the explanations simple, and backed my answers with practical use cases wherever possible. Felt like a solid discussion overall.

5. 5

   LLD60 min

   The interviewers asked me a bunch of resume-driven questions, things like what kind of impact I had on previous projects, how I approached challenges, and the decisions I made during crunch moments. After that, we moved on to the core part, Low-Level Design. I was asked to design an Air Traffic Control System, which honestly was quite an interesting challenge. The discussion touched on scalability, availability, and fault tolerance. I walked through my approach step by step, used diagrams to break things down, and made sure to explain the reasoning behind each decision. It turned out to be a great mix of design thinking and communication skills.

6. 6

   HM Round60 min

   This round was mostly about understanding me as a person. Question:

   • Why do you want to switch so early in your career?
   • What would you do if someone took credit for your work?
   • How would you handle a confrontation if it escalated? I answered each of these questions, explaining my reasons for switching, my approach to collaboration, and how I deal with workplace conflicts.

What came up