Goldman Sachs New Analyst interview: process, rounds and questions

Written by Mentari as typical of this process — not a record of questions Goldman Sachs has asked. Each comes with the follow-up a good interviewer asks next and what they listen for in the answer. Scenario details are our framing, chosen to fit Goldman Sachs’s sector.

1. 01 Write a function that finds the second-smallest element in an array — on paper, and talk me through it.

   Follow-up · Now the array is a stream you cannot store. What changes?

   Listens for · Clean code on paper, edge cases named, and an adaptation to a streaming constraint.

2. 02 Explain how your project authenticates users, and what happens when a token is stolen.

   Follow-up · So why use JWT at all?

   Listens for · Understands the trade-off behind a choice they made.

3. 03 What is the difference between a process and a thread, and where did your project use threads?

   Follow-up · Two of your threads update the same counter. Show me the bug and the fix.

   Listens for · Fundamentals applied; a race condition recognised and resolved.

Compiled from 7 candidate reports (2024–2026) and the official hiring page. Where reports differ, the range is shown rather than one number.

Engineering assessment — reported pattern — Goldman says only that engineering applicants take a HackerRank assessment. Candidates describe three or four coding problems with aptitude and CS MCQs on DSA, DBMS and OOP; a July 2025 summer-analyst drive added a written "self-story" decision-making question. Preparation sites report a 66-MCQ aptitude paper for non-engineering drives. Counts vary by drive.^6,7,8,10

1. Drill three DSA problems in ninety minutes on HackerRank, reading input formats carefully. The engineering assessment is HackerRank with three or four problems; time pressure is the reported filter.
2. Revise operating systems, threading, UNIX basics, SQL and OOP to the level of explaining them with your own project. The technical interviews swing from coding into fundamentals; that swing is where candidates report being caught.
3. Practise writing a recursive function on paper and explaining the call stack aloud. Candidates describe coding and recursion explained on paper as a stage in itself.
4. Record a 30-minute set of video answers — motivation, a failure, a judgement call — and watch them back. The HireVue stage is official and about 30 minutes; recorded answers are a different skill from live ones.
5. Prepare one project to the level of its authentication and scaling decisions. Projects led the interviews, followed by optimisation and small system-design questions.
6. For non-engineering divisions: practise a timed aptitude paper and a structured group discussion. The official process for those divisions is a test and/or group discussion before final rounds.
7. Plan for a long day. Superday accounts describe repeated rounds back to back; composure late in the day is scored.

What Goldman Sachs says it assesses

• First interview: a ~30-minute video interview; engineering applicants take a HackerRank assessment; Superday: two to five final-round interviews depending on the division²
• Students may "complete written/online test and/or participate in group discussions" before final-round interviews¹
• HackerRank is "a coding-based assessment tool used for Engineering roles"⁴

What candidates report being probed on

• Coding explained aloud or on paper — recursion, merging sorted arrays, longest substring without repeats, max-stack, trie, linked-list intersection^6,7,9
• Projects in depth, then optimisation and basic system design — authentication, JWT, caching^6,9
• SQL, operating systems and UNIX, threading, C++ fundamentals^6,9
• Puzzles and dynamic programming^8,9
• Persistence across many rounds in one long day^9,6

Goldman Sachs runs two visibly different campus funnels and publishes the skeleton of both. For engineers it is the only bank in these guides whose website names the assessment platform and the video-interview length, and whose campus accounts describe a Superday of two or three technical interviews plus HR on one day — candidates call the length and the repetition the hard part, more than any single question. For other divisions the official page describes a test and/or group discussion before final rounds, and reports of the Indian non-engineering process are thin enough that the official page is the better guide.

The second difference is the shape of the technical interviews. Accounts describe coding on paper and recursion explained line by line, then a swing into operating systems, threading, SQL and small design questions — a breadth more typical of systems-oriented firms than of product companies, and consistent with the firm’s engineering pages. A candidate who has prepared only medium LeetCode problems is reported to be caught by the fundamentals round rather than the coding one.

Where the sources disagree

The official pages and the engineering accounts agree closely on sequence and disagree only on counts. Goldman describes a 30-minute video interview, a HackerRank assessment for engineers and two to five Superday interviews; the July 2025 summer-analyst drive describes a HackerRank round, two technical interviews and HR on the same day; the December 2024 Engineering Campus Hiring Program account describes an aptitude test, a technical assessment and three technical interviews; the July 2024 on-campus account describes an assessment and a 60-minute video interview with two coding problems. The assessment varies most: three or four coding problems with aptitude and CS MCQs is the common shape, and a 66-MCQ paper is reported for non-engineering drives by preparation sites. No official page gives a cut-off; the 60–70% and 7.0 CGPA figures are preparation-site reports. Bengaluru and Hyderabad are the same programmes in two cities.

4. 04 Design a max-stack — push, pop and max in constant time.

   Follow-up · Memory is now the constraint. What do you give up?

   Listens for · Auxiliary-stack idea, then a reasoned trade of time for space.

5. 05 Write a query for each customer’s latest trade and the gap since the previous one.

   Follow-up · A customer has one trade. What does your query show?

   Listens for · Window functions and an edge case noticed unprompted.

6. 06 Tell me about a time you kept going when the first two approaches failed.

   Follow-up · How did you decide the third approach was worth trying rather than stopping?

   Listens for · Persistence with judgement, not stubbornness.

7. 07 Why this division and not another in the firm?

   Follow-up · What would a bad day in this division look like, and would you still want it?

   Listens for · Knows what the division does day to day; a realistic view of the downside.

8. 08 Three light bulbs, three switches, one visit to the room. How?

   Follow-up · Now the bulbs are LEDs that stay cold. What do you do?

   Listens for · Reasons aloud and adapts when the trick is removed.

9. 09 What is happening in Indian markets right now that would matter to a risk team?

   Follow-up · Which of our businesses is most exposed, and how would you know first?

   Listens for · Business awareness connected to the firm — expected even of engineers at a bank.

Your project uses JWT for authentication. Walk me through what happens when a token is stolen.

Weak · "JWTs are signed so they cannot be forged; if one is stolen the attacker could use it until it expires, so we keep expiry short."

Stronger · "Until expiry the attacker is me, because the server does not know the difference. In my project expiry was 24 hours, which I now think was too long. The fixes are short-lived access tokens with refresh tokens stored HttpOnly, a server-side revocation list keyed by token id for the cases that matter, and binding the token to something the attacker is less likely to have. Each has a cost — the revocation list reintroduces the state JWTs were meant to avoid."

Why the follow-up lands · The interviewer asks "so why use JWT at all?" The strong answer has the trade-off ready; the weak one has a definition.

Illustrative — yours must be true.

Goldman’s engineering campus funnel is a HackerRank assessment, a 30-minute video interview and a Superday of two to five interviews; its other divisions use a test and/or group discussion before final rounds. The company publishes the stages but not counts or cut-offs; campus notices set those. Cohort levers are timed HackerRank practice, fundamentals revision and recorded-answer practice.

Mentari’s software-engineer and finance mocks rehearse the live rounds — fundamentals explained aloud, a project pushed to its design decisions, and division-fit questions — for the shortlisted batch before the drive. Run Goldman Sachs-pattern mocks for a whole batch.

• Software engineer mock interview
• Finance mock interview
• JP Morgan interview
• Morgan Stanley interview
• STAR Method Answers That Survive Follow-ups
• Why Should We Hire You? Fresher Answer Guide
• All company guides →

1. Process for students — India — Goldman Sachs (official) · official · accessed 2026-10-23 · campus application; test and/or group discussion; final-round interviews
2. Prepare — students — Goldman Sachs (official) · official · accessed 2026-10-23 · 30-minute video interview; HackerRank for engineers; Superday of 2–5 interviews
3. New Analyst Program — India — Goldman Sachs (official) · official · accessed 2026-10-23
4. Your guide to HackerRank success — Goldman Sachs (official) · official · accessed 2026-10-23
5. Careers — India — Goldman Sachs (official) · official · accessed 2026-10-23
6. Goldman Sachs interview experience — Summer Analyst, on-campus 2025 — GeeksforGeeks · candidate report, 2025-07 · accessed 2026-10-23 · HackerRank → two technical rounds → HR, same day
7. Goldman Sachs Engineering Campus Hiring Program experience — GeeksforGeeks · candidate report, 2024-12 · accessed 2026-10-23 · aptitude test, technical assessment, three technical interviews
8. Goldman Sachs interview experience — on-campus, July 2024 — Naukri Campus · candidate report, 2024-07 · accessed 2026-10-23
9. Goldman Sachs interview experience (engineering, multiple rounds) — GeeksforGeeks · candidate report, 2025-07 · accessed 2026-10-23 · page updated July 2025; drive date not stated
10. Goldman Sachs aptitude test — PrepInsta · candidate report · accessed 2026-10-23 · preparation-site compilation; 66-MCQ pattern
11. Goldman Sachs eligibility criteria — PrepInsta · candidate report · accessed 2026-10-23 · preparation-site compilation
12. Complete guide on Goldman Sachs India assessment test — Naukri Code360 · candidate report · accessed 2026-10-23 · preparation-site compilation

Verified October 2026 by Sumit Mishra, Mentari founder. Spotted an error, or represent Goldman Sachs? Write to [email protected] — we acknowledge within two working days and correct or remove a disputed statement within 72 hours.

Mentari is not affiliated with Goldman Sachs. This page is pattern-based, compiled from the public sources listed, and is not insider information. Candidate-reported details are reproduced as patterns only, in our own words.