I recently interviewed for the Strats role in the AWM Strats department at Goldman Sachs. The interview process was rigorous and consisted of multiple rounds, each focusing on different aspects of my technical and behavioural skills. Although I was ultimately rejected, the experience provided invaluable insights and helped me grow both professionally and personally.
Recruitment Process Overview
- Initial Screening: Exploratory Round
- Coding Round
- Technical Round I
- Technical Round II
Round 1: Initial Screening: Exploratory Round
The first round was an exploratory call that lasted around 30 minutes via video call. This round was more about understanding my future aspirations and whether I would be a good fit for the role.
Key Questions
- Introduce yourself and explain your background.
- What are your future goals, and why are you targeting the Strats role?
- Why Goldman Sachs and what interests you about this department?
Obstacles: No obstacle as such, cleared the round smoothly.
Round 2: Coding Round
The Coding round lasted 1 hour and was conducted via video call. This round was focused on problem-solving and testing my Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) knowledge.
Key Questions
Chessboard Problem:
- The question asked about a bishop on an 8x8 chessboard. I was given the starting and target coordinates and had to find the minimum number of moves for the bishop to reach the target. If it was impossible, I needed to return -1.
- After some brainstorming, I identified the pattern and solved it successfully, passing all test cases within 30 minutes.
Trapping Rainwater Problem:
- I skipped the brute force approach and quickly suggested using the prefix and suffix array approach to solve this problem. However, due to time constraints, I was unable to implement the solution completely.
Obstacles: I touched DSA last in December 2022, so I was a bit slow and underprepared for the interview, I was even facing difficulty in the syntax but the interviewer understood and helped me a bit with cpp syntax.
Round 3: Technical Round I
The Technical Round I lasted for 1 hour and was conducted via video call. This round was a panel interview with two interviewers. The questions started off easy but progressively became more challenging.
Key Questions
Puzzle Question:
Reverse a Number:
- The interviewers asked me to reverse a number, a basic question. I explained my approach and coded the solution. We discussed edge cases like integer overflow, and I explained how I would handle those cases.
Arithmetic Progression in an Array:
- I was asked how to check if an array's elements form an Arithmetic Progression. I initially suggested sorting the array and checking the difference between consecutive elements. The interviewer asked me to optimize it, and I came up with a Hashmap approach which they were satisfied with.
Obstacles: I faced minor lags because I had lost touch with coding from sometime. Also, not able to solve puzzle caused a bit of panic to me.
Round 4: Technical Round II
This round took place just 15 minutes after the previous one, making it a bit challenging to recover fully. The round lasted 1 hour and was again conducted via video call.
Key Questions
Remove Consecutive Characters from String:
- I was asked to solve the problem where consecutive characters in a string need to be removed. I first provided the brute force solution and then optimized it using a stack approach. The solution passed all test cases.
Square Root of a Decimal to 4 Decimal Places:
- The second question was about finding the square root of a decimal to 4 decimal places. I proposed the binary search approach, but I struggled to handle the precision for four decimal places in the code. The interviewer acknowledged my thought process but noted that I needed to improve on implementing it within the time frame.
Obstacles: The second question was a bit googly for me and I was stuck due to that 4 decimal place criteria.
Verdict: Rejected
