took Goldman's online assessment last week as part of their software engineering pipeline. sharing details because the format is a little different from what i saw written about online.
platform: HackerRank. they still use it. proctored with webcam + screen share. you get a warning if you switch tabs, don't do it.
format: 2 coding problems, 90 minutes total. no MCQ or fill-in sections like some banks have added. just code.
difficulty: both problems were what i'd call medium-plus on leetcode scale. not the kind of medium where you recognize it immediately and crank it out. the kind where you need to spend 5 minutes thinking before you write anything. one involved trees (I won't be more specific), one was string manipulation with some constraint you had to read carefully.
what I noticed: partial credit seems to exist. i got one problem fully correct, the other partially (my O(n^2) solution passed most test cases). i still got moved forward. time management matters more than you'd think. i spent 50 minutes on problem one and panicked on problem two. if i'd timboxed at 40 i'd have had a better shot at full marks. they specifically ask you to write production-quality code comments, not just working code. felt weird in a timed context but i threw in a few and it was fine.
overall: doable if you've been grinding for a few weeks. not impossible for a strong senior engineer who hasn't leetcoded in a year, but probably stressful without a warmup.
i got the move-forward email about 8 days after completing it, which is longer than i expected.