GOLDMAN SACHS - when I received a call from HR I was overwhelmed but ...
The interview was super simple, considering the fact that I had prepared for the FAANG perspective. Day before the onsite interview , I went through some of the reviews from glassdoor + blind , the questions being asked in India/singapore was far more sensible than what was asked at onsite in SF , but I assumed - may be their pattern may have changed , so went ahead with a positive sign.
Phone : The phone interview consisted of two questions from leetcode/glassdoor : Trapping rain water + String compression. After I cleared the phone interview, I was asked for an onsite interview.
Onsite interviews consisted of 4 rounds at the marcus office in SF. It is a we-work shared office.
Round 1: Two people, one over the Video Conference and another one in person. Clearly the guy who interviewing me had just come without any preparations. He scanned through my resume on the spot and also informed me that I am looking at your resume now - give me 2 minutes . They started asking me to explain about agile process. Later, you can explain about performance testing. I felt they were clearly not interested in interviewing me . Later they said explain about SDLC process. And they said , you do pretty much as what we work on here !
Round 2: Manager. He was quite interested in knowing what I was working on currently and on which technologies I have been working on - so as to adapt them in his current scope of work. I enjoyed talking to me and went in deep on certain technology.
Round 3: Technical round with an engineer from NY. Asked me to work on coderpad with him over the call, using an "IPAD" and its screen was continuously flickering . I juggled alot to write a code using an IPAD and have never had an experience writing a code using IPAD. I made several typing mistakes and was finding it hard to erase through as the ipad was flickering alot . Calculate the average of grades and return the highest grade. Glassdoor question: { "charles: 99", "bob:86", "charles:97"} . Return bob: 86.
Suggestion 1: Just type this question on google, you will get the question and answer from an another candidate at glassdoor.
Suggestion 2: If they provide you an ipad for your coding interview, please stop them and ask if you can use your own laptop.
Round 4: System Design. Clearly those two engineers were expecting the design what they have read about during their course of work, rather than understanding on what I was explaining them. Problem statement: Two servers are involved in transactions using UDP protocol, how would you handle the situation if any packets gets dropped during the transactions. Simple answer, use TCP ! Suggested them various alternatives, but later they asked me to resolve concurrency issue , and before I could proceed, we were out of time.
Called up the HR by the End of the interview and told them that I would not wish to proceed with goldman sachs as I was not satisfied with the level of interview.
Reviews: Don't crack your head too much for goldman sachs, you can just clear the interview with minimum knowledge !
If you are expecting more amazing / challenge oriented work - I would'nt consider wasting your time giving interview here. When the manager was explaining their pipeline of tasks for future, its when I had made up my mind as NO.
All the best !