Goldman Sachs interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

Analyst

Goldman Sachs
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5 rounds | 7 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Preparation
Duration: 3 Months
Topics: DSA, OS, DBMS, Arrays, Strings, Greedy, System Design
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Practise previous year aptitude questions from GS for pattern knowing. Helps a lot. Like a lot.
Tip 2 : Upskill your aptitude, first round is the hardest.
Tip 3 : Maths is very important for both the two OA rounds.

Application process
Where: Other
Eligibility: No criteria
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1 : Be honest with your resume. They ask questions pertaining to that.
Tip 2 : Skills should be mentioned precisely. They will ask questions about it then.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Hard
Online Coding Interview
Duration90 minutes
Interview date16 Jan 2022
Coding problem0

Consisted of aptitude questions and maths. Quite tough. 66 questions in 90 mins. +5 for correct and -2 for incorrect.
Had a window of 30 minutes to start the test at 4 pm.

02
Round
Hard
Online Coding Interview
Duration110 Minutes
Interview date27 Feb 2022
Coding problem2

Login window of 30 mins at 5:30 pm.
+5 for correct and -2 for incorrect in MCQs.

There were 4 sections:
1. Numerical computation
2. Coding (2 questions)
3. English section having 2 questions essay type
4. Technical MCQs about output in JAVA, OOPS, OS, etc.

There were time limit for each section, you couldn't move to the next section until you complete the first.

1. Auto Suggestion

Hard
60m average time
65% success
0/120
Asked in companies
AmazonMicrosoftGoldman Sachs

Bob had a hard time remembering the spelling of words. Alice, his best friend, decided to make a program that suggests words after every character Bob types.

Alice had an array of ‘N’ strings ‘S’ containing Bob’s most commonly used words. She decided to suggest at most three words after each character is typed. The typed word and the suggested word should have the same prefix. If there are more than 3 such words in the array, print the three lexicographically minimum words.

Problem approach

Just created a list of words. Traverse the list. If the letter is desirable, add to a list.
Traverse keyboard and turn it to * accordingly.

Try solving now

2. Potter and Profit

Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
AdobeGoldman Sachs

There is a potter who makes pottery wares. With his saving, he can purchase some pottery clay, say ‘K’ units to make pottery wares. He can transform this clay into ‘N’ different items. Each item requires a certain amount of day for production. From past experiences, he knows the profit he will make on each item. he wishes to maximize the profit.

Given the amount of clay he has, the number of things that can be made, the days required, and the profit associated with items. Help him find the maximum profit that he can earn.

Problem approach

I simply stored word length and profit in a max Heap based on profit.
tried greedy approach where max profit word was taken and length+1 was subtracted from the word limit until no more space is left or no more words can be fit

Try solving now
03
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration45 Minutes
Interview date31 Mar 2022
Coding problem2

3 interview rounds were scheduled on the same day. If you clear one, you are moved on to the next. Else, you are told to leave the call.
Was conducted on zoom. A common room was made for all. Breakrooms were made for the interviews and we were moved there when our turn came.

1. Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock II

Moderate
22m average time
0/80
Asked in companies
Goldman SachsPhonePeLinkedIn

You have been given stock values/prices for N number of days. Every i-th day signifies the price of a stock on that day. Your task is to find the maximum profit which you can make by buying and selling the stocks.

 Note :
You may make as many transactions as you want but can not have more than one transaction at a time i.e, if you have the stock, you need to sell it first, and then only you can buy it again.
Problem approach

Just find the min Value possible and find the difference with the further days. Store the days used and keep a min variable for use.

Try solving now

2. Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock III

Hard
0/120
Asked in companies
Samsung R&D InstituteMicrosoftSalesforce

You are Harshad Mehta’s friend. He told you the price of a particular stock for the next ‘n’ days.


You are given an array ‘prices’ which such that ‘prices[i]’ denotes the price of the stock on the ith day.


You don't want to do more than 2 transactions. Find the maximum profit that you can earn from these transactions.


Note

1. Buying a stock and then selling it is called one transaction.

2. You are not allowed to do multiple transactions at the same time. This means you have to sell the stock before buying it again. 
Example:
Input: ‘n’ = 7, ‘prices’ = [3, 3, 5, 0, 3, 1, 4].

Output: 6

Explanation: 
The maximum profit can be earned by:
Transaction 1: Buying the stock on day 4 (price 0) and then selling it on day 5 (price 3). 
Transaction 2: Buying the stock on day 6 (price 1) and then selling it on day 6 (price 4).
Total profit earned will be (3 - 0) + ( 4 - 1) = 6. 
Problem approach

maintained two variables min1 min2 to store the min buying amount and calculated all corresponding profit. Made sure same day transaction wasn't possible.

Try solving now
04
Round
Hard
Video Call
Duration40 Minutes
Interview date31 Mar 2022
Coding problem1

40 minutes I was quizzed on OOPS/DBMS/OS questions. I was asked java questions too. The interviewer just wanted to check my fundamental concepts.

1. System Design Question

Design a URL shortener. What DS would you use for this

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Practice system design questions
Tip 2 : Know your OS and JAVA
Tip 3 : Learn about real life applications of all DS

05
Round
Hard
Video Call
Duration60 Minutes
Interview date31 Mar 2022
Coding problem2

My turn came around 1 pm. It was on zoom. I was asked to answer and write some SQL queries pertaining to joins. It was more or less easy. The interviewer was quite friendly.
I was also asked one coding question for which I gave a good optimised solution, interviewer seemed happy.
I also answered some basic OS stuff I was asked.

1. Median in a stream

Hard
50m average time
50% success
0/120
Asked in companies
OlaInfo Edge India (Naukri.com)Samsung

Given that integers are read from a data stream. Your task is to find the median of the elements read so far.

Median is the middle value in an ordered integer list. If the size of the list is even there is no middle value. So the median is the floor of the average of the two middle values.

For example :
[2,3,4] - median is 3.
[2,3] - median is floor((2+3)/2) = 2.


Problem approach

1. Used two PQs, minHeap and maxHeap.
2. We just need the middle number for median in a sorted array, Heaps helped keep array sorted.
3. Use maxHeap to store left elements, minHeap to store right elements
4. if Size of both is same, median is average of the top of both
5. If size is different, we take the top most element on the greater side.

Try solving now

2. DBMS Question

Was asked SQL queries by being given two tables. Was asked to perform inner join and return these 3 columns based on these conditions.

Problem approach

Tip 1 : Practice SQL queries
Tip 2 : Practice Leetcode, most questions asked are common in there
Tip 3 : Be good with OS fundamentals and JAVA theory

Here's your problem of the day

Solving this problem will increase your chance to get selected in this company

Skill covered: Programming

How do you remove whitespace from the start of a string?

Choose another skill to practice
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