Goldman Sachs | Associate | NYC
Interview Experience
phone screen spiral matrix, high five
onsite string manipulation, subset, system design parsing large dataset, behavioral I had a disappointing experience with Goldman Sachs during my application for a Software...
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phone screen spiral matrix, high five
onsite string manipulation, subset, system design parsing large dataset, behavioral
I had a disappointing experience with Goldman Sachs during my application for a Software Engineering role. After going through several rigorous interview rounds and receiving an offer, I was excited about the opportunity to contribute to such a reputable organization. However, shortly after accepting the offer, Goldman Sachs unexpectedly withdrew it solely because of my visa status. This was particularly frustrating as my visa situation was clearly communicated from the beginning of the process (F1 visa). It felt unprofessional and disheartening to have my offer rescinded for something that should have been considered earlier in the hiring process. This experience left me questioning the company\u2019s commitment to diversity and inclusion, especially regarding international talent.
All F1 students, be careful with Goldman, they are wasting our time. Bullshit company.
About This Question
This is a candidate experience report from a goldman sachs interview for a swe role (junior level) during the phone screen round reported in 2025.
It covers the following topics: System Design, Matrix, Strings, Behavioral .
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About Goldman Sachs Interview Reports
This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at Goldman Sachs. LeakCode aggregates interview reports from 10+ sources, including 1Point3Acres, Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, Blind, Reddit, Indeed, and Nowcoder. Each report is translated where necessary, deduplicated against existing entries, and tagged by company, role, round type, and reporting date.
Use this question as one calibration data point, not a memorization target. Companies typically rotate their question pools every 2-4 months; the exact wording of a 2024 question may differ from what you encounter today. The underlying pattern, difficulty level, and follow-up depth at Goldman Sachs are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.
For broader preparation context, the Goldman Sachs interview process typically includes a recruiter screen, one or two technical phone screens, and a 4-5 round on-site loop covering coding, system design (at L4+ levels), and behavioral. Reports tagged on LeakCode show the round-by-round distribution and typical difficulty calibration. To browse questions filtered by round type and seniority, use the company hub linked above.
How To Practice This Type of Question
Solve similar problems on LeetCode under timed conditions (25-35 minutes per medium difficulty). The goal is pattern recognition: recognize the underlying technique (sliding window, two-pointer, BFS, memoized recursion, etc.) within 60-90 seconds of reading. Strong candidates verbalize their hypothesis out loud before coding, then iterate based on feedback. Weak candidates dive into implementation immediately, lose time on the wrong approach, and run out of time for follow-ups.
Companies update their question pools every 2-4 months. The exact wording of any given question may have been retired by the time you interview. Focus your prep on the pattern, not the specific problem. The patterns that appear in Goldman Sachs reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your Goldman Sachs Round
Apply the standard interview round template: clarify requirements (2-3 minutes), state your approach out loud and confirm direction with the interviewer (3-5 minutes), code with narration (15-25 minutes), test with concrete examples including edge cases (5 minutes), discuss optimization or trade-offs if time permits (5 minutes). This template is universally accepted across FAANG and adjacent companies; deviating from it produces weaker interviewer feedback signal.
The single most predictive failure mode in Goldman Sachs reports tagged "no hire": not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers are explicitly trained to weight this. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's written notes.