Goldman Sachs interview questions

Showing 1–30 of 35 results

• Behavioral Decision-Making & GrowthMedium

  Practice behavioral PM answers for decision-making and growth in regulated, data-heavy domains. The guide covers upskilling plans, learning backlogs, build-versus-buy trade-offs, projects derailed by external events, risk and compliance handling, customer discovery, metrics, and cross-functional leadership.

  Goldman SachsProduct ManagerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite
• Bound the Rank of BA Given Rank of ABEasy

  Determine the set of possible values for the rank of the matrix product BA given that A and B are 4x4 real matrices and rank(AB) = 2. This question tests fundamental linear algebra inequalities involving matrix ranks and nullities.

  Goldman SachsData ScientistStatistics & MathOnline Assessment
• Cache Trade-offs and a Constant-Time Least-Recently-Used CacheEasy

  Tests understanding of caching trade-offs (latency, freshness, memory overhead) and the implementation of a fixed-capacity Least Recently Used (LRU) cache supporting constant-time operations.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• Collect the Most Rocks with Upward and Rightward MovesMedium

  Tests dynamic programming on a grid to find an optimal path from the bottom-left to top-right corner using constrained directional moves.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Complete decision tree and gradient descent functionsHard

  This question evaluates implementation skills in supervised machine learning and numerical optimization, specifically computing Gini impurity and selecting optimal binary splits for a decision tree alongside deriving and applying a single-step gradient descent update for linear regression.

  Goldman SachsMachine Learning EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
• Compute the Arc Length of a CurveEasy

  Tests single-variable calculus fundamentals, specifically calculating the derivative, setting up the standard arc length integral, and evaluating it using substitution.

  Goldman SachsData ScientistStatistics & MathOnline Assessment
• Count Palindromic SubstringsEasy

  This question tests your ability to identify palindromes within a string using expansion around centers or dynamic programming.

  Goldman SachsData ScientistCoding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
• Count segments and optimize 3-server assignmentMedium

  This two-part problem evaluates array-processing and counting competency for identifying fixed-length strictly increasing subarrays and combinatorial partitioning and optimization competency for assigning elements to three groups to maximize a minimal pairwise-difference metric, and is commonly asked to assess efficient algorithm design, correctness under constraints, and the ability to handle large inputs. Belonging to the Coding & Algorithms domain, it tests practical algorithmic application, data-structure-aware implementation and complexity analysis rather than purely theoretical understanding.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnline Assessment
• Describe a proud project and handling credit conflictMedium

  This question evaluates interpersonal and ethical competencies such as ownership, leadership, communication, conflict resolution, and professional integrity in the context of software project work.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipTechnical Screen
• Design a Pastebin Service: Requirements, Entities, APIs and End-to-End ArchitectureEasy

  Design a scalable text sharing (Pastebin) service that generates unique short URLs for submitted text snippets. This question assesses API design, data modeling, storage decoupling, key generation strategies, and caching mechanisms under high read concurrency.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Streaming Metrics Dashboard: Time-Range Queries and Event-Time WatermarksMedium

  Design the backend of a dashboard that shows metrics computed from a continuous event stream and lets users query any time range. The discussion focuses on answering range queries from pre-aggregated data and on how watermarks decide when event-time windows are complete despite late or out-of-order events.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Ten-Minute In-Memory Notification Deduplication EngineMedium

  Design a high-throughput, low-latency in-memory deduplication service that identifies and suppresses duplicate notifications within a 10-minute sliding window.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerSystem DesignOnsite
• Design a Workspace Resource ManagerMedium

  This problem tests your ability to design a tree-based hierarchical resource management system and implement efficient operations for path-based access, relocation, and cycle detection.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Estimate Pi with a Square Cardboard and a Fair Die to 5-6 Decimal PlacesMedium

  Using only a square piece of cardboard and a fair six-sided die, design an experiment that estimates pi empirically, then explain how many trials 5 to 6 correct decimal places would require and how you would get there. It tests Monte Carlo design, bias versus variance, and error analysis.

  Goldman SachsQuantitative ResearcherStatistics & MathTechnical Screen
• Evaluate TPR/FPR, sigmoid, and activationsHard

  This question evaluates competency in binary classification metrics (confusion matrices, TPR/FPR), basic neural network forward computation (sigmoid neuron z and output), and knowledge of activation function selection and pitfalls.

  Goldman SachsMachine Learning EngineerMachine LearningOnline Assessment
• Expected Number of Runs in Coin TossesEasy

  Tests understanding of linearity of expectation and indicator random variables through counting consecutive runs in a sequence of coin tosses.

  Goldman SachsData ScientistStatistics & MathOnline Assessment
• Find the Root of the Largest Tree in a Child-to-Parent ForestMedium

  Given a list of child-to-parent pairs that form a forest of rooted trees, return the root ID of the tree with the most nodes, breaking size ties by the smallest root ID. Tests building a forest from an edge list, identifying roots, counting tree sizes, and applying a precise tie-break rule.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• From Alpha Signal to Portfolio: Reliability, Regime Dependence and EntropyMedium

  Walk through how a quantitative equity team turns a predictive signal into portfolio holdings, then explain how to judge whether the signal is reliable, whether its performance depends on the market regime, and how entropy and mutual information can be used to evaluate signals and portfolios.

  Goldman SachsQuantitative ResearcherStatistics & MathTechnical Screen
• Highest Average Student Score: Out-of-Memory Input, Overflow and Thread Safety in JavaMedium

  Compute the highest average score among students from name and score records, then extend the code for data larger than memory, negative scores, integer overflow and multithreaded processing. The question also covers what atomic operations are in Java and how synchronized differs from ReentrantLock.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• How to answer HireVue behavioral promptsMedium

  Prepare for the How to answer HireVue behavioral prompts interview question with a structured prompt, clarifying questions, answer rubric, follow-up probes, and a stronger model solution. This behavioral & leadership guide helps candidates frame assumptions, trade-offs, metrics, and role-relevant evidence without relying on generic answers.

  Goldman SachsProduct ManagerBehavioral & LeadershipTechnical Screen
• How would you handle conflict and data pressure?Medium

  This question evaluates conflict resolution, leadership communication, ethical judgment, and secure-data governance for a software engineer managing collaborator disagreement and requests involving sensitive information.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerBehavioral & LeadershipTechnical Screen
• Implement a String DequeEasy

  This question evaluates competence with fundamental data structures and algorithms by requiring an implementation of a string double-ended queue (deque), checking understanding of constant-time (O(1)) operations, manipulation of node links or references, and correct handling of edge cases; category: Coding & Algorithms; level: practical implementation rather than purely conceptual. It is commonly asked to assess the ability to implement low-level data structure mechanics, guarantee performance bounds, and expose attention to correctness and boundary conditions in algorithmic coding tasks.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Infer BA When AB Is the IdentityEasy

  This question tests the understanding of matrix invertibility, the properties of the identity matrix, and the fundamental differences between square and non-square matrix multiplication.

  Goldman SachsData ScientistStatistics & MathOnline Assessment
• Integrate a Two-Sided Exponential DensityEasy

  This question tests the ability to integrate probability density functions (PDFs) over specified intervals, specifically handling the absolute value function in symmetric distributions.

  Goldman SachsData ScientistStatistics & MathOnline Assessment
• Leading a Distributed Cross-Divisional TeamMedium

  Practice leading a distributed cross-divisional team in a regulated industry. The solution covers team charters, RACI/DACI, async communication, time-zone fairness, cultural norms, compliance-by-design, decision logs, trust-building rituals, first-30-day priorities, and team-health metrics.

  Goldman SachsProduct ManagerBehavioral & LeadershipOnsite
• Lottery Coupon Winners CalculationMedium

  This question tests a candidate's ability to apply digit dynamic programming to efficiently count integers with specific digit-sum properties over large numeric ranges. It evaluates algorithmic thinking at the intersection of combinatorics and optimization, a category commonly assessed in technical interviews to measure comfort with non-obvious problem reductions and complexity trade-offs.

  Goldman SachsProduct ManagerProduct / Decision MakingOnline Assessment
• Maximize Element Frequency with Limited IncrementsMedium

  Tests sorting and sliding window techniques to maximize an element's frequency within an increment budget.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite
• Minimum-Cost Round Trip Visiting Every City Once with Asymmetric CostsMedium

  Given a complete matrix of possibly asymmetric travel costs between up to 16 cities, return the minimum cost of a round trip that starts at city 0, visits every other city exactly once and returns to city 0. The problem tests exact optimization over subsets of cities within tight limits.

  Goldman SachsQuantitative ResearcherCoding & AlgorithmsTechnical Screen
• Overlapping Meetings and Minimum Rooms: No Sweep Line, No Library Sort, Streams, LogsMedium

  Starting from a list of meeting time intervals, decide whether one person can attend them all, then find the minimum number of rooms without a sweep line, order the meetings without a library sort, handle a stream of meetings, and explain how a Kafka-style append-only log broker works. It tests heaps, sorting, streaming and log storage.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerSoftware Engineering FundamentalsOnsite
• Rolling Ball Maze ReachabilityMedium

  This problem tests your ability to model a grid-based movement simulation as a graph reachability problem, requiring efficient state traversal.

  Goldman SachsSoftware EngineerCoding & AlgorithmsOnsite