Goldman Sachs Interview Tips: Questions Answers & OA Interviews
Goldman Sachs' hiring process begins with a thorough resume screening, often using tools such as automated systems (ATS), to find candidates with solid technical credentials and relevant experience. If a resume is successfully selected, applicants may be invited to take an online programming test (OA), which assesses problem-solving abilities and programming proficiency, primarily through programming challenges.
Successful OA candidates move on to multiple rounds of interviews, usually starting with one or two rounds of phone interviews, followed by an on-site interview. The phone interviews are designed to assess technical skills and cultural fit, and will discuss coding expertise, problem solving skills, and past project experience, and may involve algorithms, data structure problems, or programming exercises. This is also an opportunity for candidates to learn about the Goldman Sachs team and programs.
On-site interviews are the final stage of the Goldman Sachs interview process and typically consist of three to four rounds, which may take the form of multiple or one-on-one. These interviews are high intensity, incorporating programming challenges, system design questions, and behavioral interviews to fully assess a candidate's technical skills and cultural fit. There will be at least one round focused on programming questions, one round focused on system design, and one round that is primarily a behavioral interview. The entire interview process is generally difficult and reflects Goldman Sachs' rigorous hiring standards.
Job Type
SDE
Responsibilities:Responsible for designing, developing, testing, and maintaining high throughput, low latency financial trading systems, risk management platforms, data analytics tools, client interfaces, and internal operations systems.
Interviews examine technical points: data structures and algorithms (core), systems design (intermediate and advanced), coding skills, databases, operating systems and computer networks.
data scientist
Job Responsibilities:Extract insights from massive financial data using big data analytics, statistical modeling and machine learning techniques to build predictive models, optimize trading strategies, improve customer experience or automate business processes.
Interviews examine technical points: statistics and probability, machine learning, data structures and algorithms, coding skills, big data technologies.
Reliability Engineer
Responsibilities:Ensure stable operation, high performance and scalability of Goldman Sachs' critical systems. They reduce manual intervention and increase system availability through automated tools, monitoring systems and troubleshooting.
Interviews examine technical points: operating systems and networks, Python, Shell, etc. for automated scripting, distributed systems, monitoring and alarming.
Network Security Engineer
Job Description:Protect Goldman Sachs' systems and data from cyber threats. This includes designing and implementing security architectures, performing vulnerability assessments, managing identities and access, responding to security incidents, and ensuring regulatory compliance.
Interviews examine technical points: network security, operating systems, coding skills and automated scripting, security incident response, threat modeling and risk assessment.
The Key Areas of Tech Interview
When preparing for a software engineering interview at Goldman Sachs, mastering specific programming problem solving patterns can significantly improve your readiness - dynamic programming, double pointers, and binary lookups are a few of the most common patterns that highlight the importance Goldman Sachs places on algorithmic efficiency and data processing skills.
While familiarizing yourself with these common patterns, be sure to consider less common but equally complex areas, such as parallelism and Trie, a combination of common and unique challenges that exemplify Goldman Sachs' holistic approach to evaluating the technical skills of future software engineers.
| Features | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Misc | 10% |
| Simulation | 8.3% |
| Two Pointers | 15% |
| Adv. Data Structure | 3.3% |
| Backtracking | 8.3% |
| Basic Data Structure and Algorithm | 11.7% |
| Binary Search | 11.7% |
| Heap | 3.3% |
| Graph | 0.0% |
| Dynamic Programing | 20% |
| Depth-First Search | 3.3% |
| Breadth-First Search | 5.0% |
Programming interview questions at Goldman Sachs are typically both rigorous and challenging, on par with other well-known tech companies like Google and Apple (FAANG). Common test patterns include dynamic programming, binary lookups and double pointers.
Despite their difficulty, Goldman Sachs' interview questions compare favorably to certain FAANGThe company's standards are still more "approachable". This is a daunting, but not unattainable, challenge for job seekers.
If you look at the percentage of difficulty of the questions, only 22.21 TP6T were easy questions, the percentage of medium difficulty questions was as high as 65.11 TP6T, and the remaining 12.71 TP6T were high difficulty interview questions.
Questions and Difficulty
| Common Interview Questions | Examining technical points | degree of difficulty or ease |
|---|---|---|
| The robot is inside the circle. | analog (device, as opposed digital) | medium difficulty |
| arrival point | Basic Data Structures and Algorithms | challenging |
| clap each other's hands | Basic data structures and algorithms, heap | liable (to) |
| conversion of fractions into recurring decimal places | Basic Data Structures and Algorithms | medium difficulty |
| Rainwater harvesting | Dynamic Programming, Miscellaneous, Double Pointers | challenging |
| Reformatting dates | Basic Data Structures and Algorithms | liable (to) |
| Minimize the maximum of two arrays | binary search | medium difficulty |
| Backspace String Comparison | Analog, Dual Pointer | liable (to) |
| Longest peak in the array | Dynamic Programming, Double Pointer | medium difficulty |
| The first unique character in the string | Basic Data Structures and Algorithms | liable (to) |
Goldman Sachs OA (online assessment)
The primary purpose of the Goldman Sachs Online Assessment (OA) interview is to conduct an initial screening of a large number of applicants to effectively assess a candidate's technical fundamentals, problem-solving skills, and attention to detail in order to identify potential talent that best meets their requirements. To be prepared, candidates should focus on and review in depth data structures (e.g., arrays, chained lists, trees, graphs, hash tables, etc.) and core algorithms (e.g., sorting, searching, dynamic programming, greedy algorithms, binary lookups, double pointers, etc.). In addition, it is critical to understand and master time and space complexity analysis, as this directly reflects the efficiency of the code. Meanwhile, familiarity with at least one mainstream programming language (e.g. Python, Java, C++) and proficiency in applying its features to solve real-world problems is crucial to successfully pass the Goldman Sachs OA.
SDE
The Software Engineer position is extremely demanding in terms of algorithms and data structures, with a focus on code quality, efficiency, and system design skills.
Examine the technical points:
- Data Structures and Algorithms: Arrays, chained lists, trees (binary, balanced), graphs, hash tables, stacks, queues; sorting, searching, dynamic programming, greedy algorithms, binary lookups, double pointers.
- Programming Languages: Proficiency in Java, Python, or C++, including object-oriented programming, concurrent programming, and memory management.
- System Design: Scalability, high availability, distributed systems, API design, database selection, caching strategies.
- Concurrency and multithreading: Thread-safety, locks, concurrency primitives.
- Problem solving skills: Analyze problems, break them down, and design efficient solutions.
Interview Title:
- Given an array of integers nums and an integer target value target, find two integers in the array whose sum is the target value target and return their array subscripts. Assume that each input corresponds to only one answer, and do not allow the same elements to be reused.
- How to design a large-scale distributed highly concurrent trading system? Please consider the core components of the system, data consistency, fault tolerance mechanisms and performance optimization.
- Suppose you have an n-step staircase. You can climb 1 or 2 steps at a time. How many different ways can you climb to the top of the stairs?
- How to implement a thread-safe queue in a multi-threaded environment?
- Explain the producer-consumer pattern and implement it in a language you are familiar with.
data scientist
The position focuses on statistics, machine learning theory, data processing and modeling application skills.
Examine the technical points:
- Statistics and Probability Theory: Hypothesis testing, regression analysis, Bayes' theorem, common probability distributions.
- Machine Learning: Supervised learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning algorithms (e.g., linear regression, logistic regression, decision trees, support vector machines, clustering, neural networks, etc.), model evaluation, feature engineering, overfitting/underfitting.
- Programming and Tools: Python (Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow/PyTorch), R, SQL.
- Big Data Technology: Understanding of distributed computing frameworks such as Hadoop, Spark, etc.
- Data processing and cleaning: ETL process, missing value handling, outlier detection.
Interview Title:
- Explain what overfitting and underfitting are and give at least two ways to solve them respectively.
- How do you evaluate the performance of a binary classification model? List and explain at least three commonly used evaluation metrics.
- Suppose you have a database table (transactions) containing user transaction records with user_id, transaction_date, amount fields. Write a SQL query to find the total transaction amount for each user in the last 30 days.
- If you were given a dataset of historical customer transactions, how would you construct a model to predict customer churn? Describe your data preprocessing, feature selection, model selection, and evaluation process.
- You have two coins, one is fair (probability 0.5 heads up) and the other is heads up on both sides. You randomly choose a coin and flip it, and the result is heads up. What is the probability that you chose the fair coin?
Field Reliability Engineer
The SRE position focuses on system stability, reliability, performance optimization, and automated operations and maintenance.
Examine the technical points:
-
- Operating System: Linux/Unix operating system principles, file systems, process management, memory management, network configuration.
- Computer networks: TCP/IP stack, HTTP/HTTPS, DNS, load balancing, firewalls.
- Automation and Scripting: Shell scripting, Python automation.
- Cloud Platform: AWS, Azure, GCP, and other cloud services and architectures.
- Monitoring and Logging: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, Splunk.
- Distributed Systems Concepts: CAP Theorem, Distributed Consistency, Microservice Architecture.
- Troubleshooting and Performance Tuning: System performance bottleneck analysis, troubleshooting.
Interview Title:
-
- On a Linux system, if a process is taking up a lot of CPU, how would you troubleshoot the problem and optimize it? Please give specific steps and commands to use.
- Explain the process of TCP three handshakes and four waves. How would you step-by-step troubleshoot a network problem if a client is unable to connect to a server?
- Write a Python script that periodically checks the health status of a service (e.g., by requesting a /health endpoint via HTTP GET) and sends an email notification if the service is down.
- How to design a highly available monitoring system to ensure real-time collection of key business metrics and exception alerts?
- Explain what load balancing is and list a few common load balancing algorithms with their respective advantages and disadvantages.
Network Security Engineer
Cybersecurity positions focus on the protection of systems and data against all types of cyber threats.
Examine the technical points:
- Security Foundations: Encryption (symmetric/asymmetric), hashing, digital signatures, PKI.
- Cybersecurity: Firewalls, IDS/IPS, VPN, DDoS defense, common network attacks (SQL injection, XSS, CSRF).
- Operating system security: Privilege management, vulnerability management, security configuration.
- Identity and Access Management (IAM): OAuth, OpenID Connect, LDAP, Kerberos.
- Security incident response: Threat detection, analysis, and response processes.
- Secure Programming: Write secure code, code auditing.
- Compliance and Risk Management: GDPR, SOX and other regulations, risk assessment.
Interview Title:
- Explain the differences and application scenarios of symmetric and asymmetric encryption and list at least one specific algorithm.
- How to prevent SQL injection attacks? Give two or more methods and explain how they work.
- If a server is compromised, how would you perform the initial forensic analysis and stop the damage?
- Explain the OAuth 2.0 authorization process and how it relates to and differs from OpenID Connect.
- Describe a security vulnerability that you found and fixed in your project. How did you discover it? What was the fix solution?
Behavior Questions
When preparing for an interview at Goldman Sachs, behavioral questions are a great opportunity to show off your soft skills. These questions are designed to gain insight into your past experience to determine if you have the attributes Goldman Sachs looks for.
Classic Behavioral Problems and Coping Strategies
"Describe a time when you worked with a difficult teammate to complete a project."
At its core, this question examines your teamwork skills, communication skills, leadership or conflict resolution skills. You need to clearly explain how you used strategies to deal with interpersonal differences and ultimately ensure the success of the project. The focus is on how you responded positively to challenges rather than complaining about them.
"Can you tell us about a time in your program when you failed? What lessons did you learn from it?"
In the face of failure, what Goldman Sachs wants to see is your resilience and ability to learn from your mistakes. Please discuss the mistakes you made honestly, emphasizing how you took responsibility, how you solved the problem, and how those experiences positively impacted your subsequent projects.
"Please share an example of your innovative solution to a complex problem."
Here you need to show your technical skills and innovative thinking. Elaborate on how you conceptualized the solution and how you can implement it efficiently within the existing constraints. This demonstrates your problem solving insights and execution.
Teamwork Behavior Problems and Coping Strategies
"Describe a time when you collaborated with a team to solve a complex software development problem."
The emphasis is on explaining how you clearly divide labor with team members, how you ensure that everyone has the same goals through effective communication, and how you use problem-solving skills to overcome challenges. Emphasize how teamwork contributed to the success of the project.
"Can you talk about a time when you helped resolve a conflict within a development team?"
These types of questions are designed to examine your art of dealing with conflict. Please demonstrate yourMaintain neutrality and professionalismThe ability of howPromoting open communication and consultation, ultimately reaching a consensus that is in the best interest of the team without jeopardizing the goals of the project.
"Goldman Sachs is very focused on innovation, especially in areas such as transaction banking. Can you share an experience with a project that required innovative thinking and teamwork?"
Goldman Sachs wants to see how you work with team memberscollecting opinions is of wide benefit (idiom); pool wisdom for mutual benefitHowUtilizing everyone's expertiseto drive the innovation process and ensure that these innovations are aligned with the strategic goals of efficiency and effectiveness.
Job Specific Behavioral Problems and Coping Strategies
"Describe a complex software project you have worked on. What were the main challenges? How did you overcome it?"
In answering this question, focus on explaining the technical difficulties of the project, the solutions you implemented, and how they impacted the final outcome. Again, collaboration and problem-solving skills are key.
"Can you give me an example of how you improved the performance or efficiency of a particular system for which you were responsible?"
This requires you to specify an example that demonstrates how innovative thinking has resulted in a measurable improvement in system performance. Please discuss what techniques and methods you applied.
"Goldman Sachs emphasizes integrity and responsibility. Can you talk about an experience in your software engineering career where you had to make a difficult ethical decision?"
This question is designed to examine your work ethic and sense of responsibility. Provide an example that demonstrates your adherence to ethical standards, which may involve data privacy, security issues, or proprietary information handling. Clearly articulate your decision-making process and its consequences.
