Code360 powered by Coding Ninjas X Naukri.com. Code360 powered by Coding Ninjas X Naukri.com
Goldman Sachs interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

SDE - 1

Goldman Sachs
upvote
share-icon
5 rounds | 8 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

expand-icon
Journey
Before applying for this role, I was working at Expedia and Arcesium as a software developer. I worked for many years in both the companies and I got to learn alot by working there as a software developer. As soon as I saw a job opening for Goldmann Sachs, I started preparing DSA again. I went through previous interview experiences and started giving mock interviews so as to master coding skills once again.
Application story
I saw a job opening on the company's website. I reached out to a lot of people on LinkedIn for referral. One of the employees agreed to give me referral. So, I applied through his referral and then they called me for the interview rounds. The interviews went on smoothly and I got selected.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I was selected because of my never-give up attitude. I had a different way of approaching questions. I understood the question properly first and then thought of a solution for the question. In this manner, I gave the answers clearly and confidently.
Preparation
Duration: 6 Months
Topics: Data Structures, Algorithms, Database, System Design, Operating Systems
Tip
Tip

Practice DP based questions as much as you can. Also, be confident during the interview about your solution. For practice, you can prefer Coding Ninjas and Geeks For Geeks.

Application process
Where: Referral
Eligibility:
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Keep it short. Mention the academic and professional projects you've done. Add your educational details properly with percentage or CGPA obtained.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Easy
Telephonic
Duration60 minutes
Interview date29 Apr 2019
Coding problem1

The interviewer called my via phone and simultaneously provided me a link where I had to write the code for a given problem. It was scheduled at 12:30 pm, so timing was not an issue. It was a standard DP question involving a 2D matrix. The question was easy and I was able to code it within given time.

1. Minimum Cost Path

Moderate
25m average time
70% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Goldman SachsOlaSalesforce

Given a cost matrix cost[][] and a position (m, n) in cost[][], write a function that returns cost of minimum cost path to reach (m, n) from (0, 0). Each cell of the matrix represents a cost to traverse through that cell. Total cost of a path to reach (m, n) is sum of all the costs on that path (including both source and destination). You can only traverse down, right and diagonally lower cells from a given cell, i.e., from a given cell (i, j), cells (i+1, j), (i, j+1) and (i+1, j+1) can be traversed. You may assume that all costs are positive integers.

 

For example, what is the minimum cost path to (2, 2)?

 

 

The path with minimum cost is highlighted in the following figure. The path is (0, 0) –> (0, 1) –> (1, 2) –> (2, 2). The cost of the path is 8 (1 + 2 + 2 + 3).  

 

Problem approach
  • I had practiced enough of DP questions, so this one looked fairly easy. Since it was a standard DP question, the same approach worked here too.
Try solving now
02
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration60 minutes
Interview date5 May 2019
Coding problem2

The interviewer asked me two coding questions in this round.

1. Maximum Subarray Sum

Moderate
35m average time
81% success
0/80
Asked in companies
MicrosoftAccentureSAP Labs

Write an efficient program to find the sum of contiguous subarray within a one-dimensional array of numbers which has the largest sum.

Problem approach
  • I used Kadane algorithm here to find subarray with maximum sum. It is a standard question for interview.
Try solving now

2. Convert Decimal into Irreducible Fraction

Easy
25m average time
75% success
0/40
Asked in companies
OracleHCL TechnologiesTata Consultancy Services (TCS)

Given a decimal number as N, the task is to convert N into an equivalent irreducible fraction.

 

An irreducible fraction is a fraction in which numerator and denominator are co-primes i.e., they have no other common divisor other than 1.  

 

Examples:

 

Input: N = 4.50

Output: 9/2  

Explanation:

9/2 in decimal is written as 4.5

 

Input: N = 0.75

Output: 3/4

Explanation:

3/4 in decimal is written as 0.75

Problem approach
  • I was unable to solve this question in given time. I thought of using decimal precision and other things but not able to solve this.
Try solving now
03
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration60 minutes
Interview date20 May 2019
Coding problem2

This was on-site round at their Bangalore office. The interviewer was friendly and helpful. The interview held inside a conference room.

1. Magical Pattern

Easy
20m average time
80% success
0/40
Asked in companies
Goldman SachsReliance Jio Infocomm LtdAccenture

Given an integer N as input, the task is to print the Magical Pattern as given below:

 

N . . 3 2 1 2 3 . . N

. . . . . . . . . . .

3 3 3 3 2 1 2 3 3 3 3

2 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 2

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 2

3 3 3 3 2 1 2 3 3 3 3

. . . . . . . . . . .

N . . 3 2 1 2 3 . . N

 

Examples:

 

Input: 3

Output:  

       3 2 1 2 3  

       2 2 1 2 2  

       1 1 1 1 1  

       2 2 1 2 2  

       3 2 1 2 3  

 

Input: 4

Output:  

       4 3 2 1 2 3 4                                                                    

       3 3 2 1 2 3 3                                                                    

       2 2 2 1 2 2 2                                                                    

       1 1 1 1 1 1 1                                                                    

       2 2 2 1 2 2 2                                                                    

       3 3 2 1 2 3 3                                                                    

       4 3 2 1 2 3 4  

Problem approach
  • I simply use for and while loops with some conditions and printed the required pattern.
Try solving now

2. DFS Traversal

Moderate
35m average time
65% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Paytm (One97 Communications Limited)CognizantReliance Jio Infocomm Ltd

Given an undirected and disconnected graph G(V, E), containing 'V' vertices and 'E' edges, the information about edges is given using 'GRAPH' matrix, where i-th edge is between GRAPH[i][0] and GRAPH[i][1]. print its DFS traversal.

V is the number of vertices present in graph G and vertices are numbered from 0 to V-1. 

E is the number of edges present in graph G.
Note :
The Graph may not be connected i.e there may exist multiple components in a graph.
Problem approach
  • As I have to find a number of connected components in an undirected graph so I simply use Depth-first search to solve this question by visiting each element and mapped it to the number of component in which it belongs. At last, I print the vertices of each component.
Try solving now
04
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration60 minutes
Interview date20 May 2019
Coding problem2

This was the next round of the onsite interviews. Took place in the same conference room as that of the previous round.

1. Time to Burn Tree

Hard
50m average time
50% success
0/120
Asked in companies
SprinklrZomatoOLX Group

Given a node, how long will it take to burn a whole binary tree?

Problem approach
  • This was a completely different question for me. I had not seen this question before, but by drawing various cases on paper, I could write down the solution at the end. Also, I struggled a lot during this question but did not give up. I kept thinking out loud in order to at least explain my thought process to the interviewer, if not arrive at the right solution.
Try solving now

2. Count subsequence

Moderate
30m average time
60% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Goldman SachsDell TechnologiesTata Consultancy Services (TCS)

Given an array A[] consisting of N integers, the task is to find the total number of subsequence which contain only one distinct number repeated throughout the subsequence.

Examples:  

 

 

Input: A[] = {1, 2, 1, 5, 2}  

Output: 7  

Explanation:  

Subsequences {1}, {2}, {1}, {5}, {2}, {1, 1} and {2, 2} satisfy the required conditions.

Input: A[] = {5, 4, 4, 5, 10, 4}  

Output: 11  

Explanation:  

Subsequences {5}, {4}, {4}, {5}, {10}, {4}, {5, 5}, {4, 4}, {4, 4}, {4, 4} and {4, 4, 4} satisfy the required conditions. 

Problem approach
  • For this question, I simply used some mathematics and considered the frequency of each element and their contribution to subsequences. Wrote its fully commented code with neat handwriting.
Try solving now
05
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration60 minutes
Interview date20 May 2019
Coding problem1

This was the third round of the onsite interview. 
 

1. Edit Distance

Moderate
30m average time
70% success
0/80
Asked in companies
OptumSAP LabsDunzo

Given two strings str1 and str2 and below operations that can performed on str1. Find minimum number of edits (operations) required to convert ‘str1’ into ‘str2’.

 

Insert

Remove

Replace

All of the above operations are of equal cost.

Input:   str1 = "geek", str2 = "gesek"

Output:  1

We can convert str1 into str2 by inserting a 's'.

 

Input:   str1 = "cat", str2 = "cut"

Output:  1

We can convert str1 into str2 by replacing 'a' with 'u'.

 

Input:   str1 = "sunday", str2 = "saturday"

Output:  3

Last three and first characters are same.  We basically

need to convert "un" to "atur".  This can be done using

below three operations.  

Replace 'n' with 'r', insert t, insert a.

 

Problem approach
  • Firstly I gave the interviewer, a recursive solution then he asked me to reduce complexity as it was exponential of recursive solution so I gave him a top-down DP solution.
Try solving now

Here's your problem of the day

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

Skill covered: Programming

What is the index number of the last element of an array with 9 elements?

Choose another skill to practice
Join the Discussion
7 replies
Parikshit 28 Mar, 2023

This Comment was removed by the moderator

This comment won't show up to you, as it was removed by moderator due to inappropriate content.

Channurani 21 Jan, 2023

Hello ma'am where did applied for off-campus??

1 reply
0 upvotes
Reply
Report
Rakesh Manohar Jibayagol 3 Oct, 2022

Hlo medam I'm bca student . I want to searching a job 

0 replies
0 upvotes
Reply
Report
Prashant 18 Dec, 2021

Good content

0 replies
0 upvotes
Reply
Report
Saharsh Sharma 25 Sep, 2020

i am not able to see questions 

 

1 reply
3 upvotes
Reply
Report
Load more comments
Similar interview experiences
company logo
SDE - 1
2 rounds | 4 problems
Interviewed by Goldman Sachs
1155 views
0 comments
0 upvotes
company logo
SDE - 1
1 rounds | 3 problems
Interviewed by Goldman Sachs
841 views
0 comments
0 upvotes
company logo
SDE - 1
3 rounds | 5 problems
Interviewed by Goldman Sachs
1229 views
0 comments
0 upvotes
company logo
SDE - 1
5 rounds | 12 problems
Interviewed by Goldman Sachs
144 views
0 comments
0 upvotes
Companies with similar interview experiences
company logo
SDE - 1
5 rounds | 12 problems
Interviewed by Amazon
105287 views
24 comments
0 upvotes
company logo
SDE - 1
4 rounds | 5 problems
Interviewed by Microsoft
50189 views
5 comments
0 upvotes
company logo
SDE - 1
3 rounds | 7 problems
Interviewed by Amazon
31267 views
6 comments
0 upvotes