Status: 3YOE
Position: Associate SWE at Goldman Sachs
Location: Dallas, TX
Date: Dec 2020

Phone Screen with Coderpad (1 hour)

• Given a list of [Student name, Grade], return the highest average (Simpler version of High Five) https://leetcode.com/problems/high-five/
• Second coding question I didn't get to finish to leave time for behavioral questions and my questions
• Behavioral questions
  • How would you deal with a teammate who doesn't do much while working with you on a story, but takes all the credit?

Virtual On-site (3 45 minute rounds)

• System Design
  • Design a system for students registering for classes
  • Some questions about Kafka (What is it, how to handle a producer that is working too quickly for the consumer)
• SDLC
  • What is your experience with Agile?
  • What was your previous SDLC?
  • What have you done to improve your team's process?
  • How would you go about debugging a bug QA found?
  • This one was more of a conversation to feel out my experience, no right/wrong answers
• Coding
  • 2 questions
  • In place array sort
  • They only wanted pseudocode but kept interrupting to ask for certain parts to be actual code

Result: 120k base + 20k bonus

Comments: They started me off saying I'd either get 85+20 or 100+20 based on whether the team wanted me as an Analyst or Associate. Associate would mean my 3YOE would be compared to people with 6-7YOE and could have hurt me on performance reviews. Associate offer came as a counter to another offer I had and accepted. Poor WLB made me reject it for a lower offer with better WLB.