I went through a Goldman Sachs loop recently and the timeline was longer than I expected, which caused me some anxiety. I ended up collecting experiences from four other people who went through different divisions in 2025-2026. Sharing the aggregate since "how long does Goldman take" is a question I keep seeing and nobody has a clean answer.
My own timeline (technology / engineering, mid-level): Applied: Week 0 Recruiter reached out: Week 3 Phone screen with recruiter: Week 4 Technical phone screen: Week 6 Onsite / virtual panel (4 rounds): Week 9 Verbal offer: Week 11 Written offer / documentation: Week 12.5
Other people I collected: IB analyst (M&A): recruiter outreach to offer was 8 weeks, moved faster once they got into final rounds Engineering VP level: 14 weeks total, had one round that got rescheduled twice Quant analyst: 10 weeks, includes a take-home coding challenge that took 2 weeks to get feedback on Product manager: 7 weeks, faster than average
Things that affect timeline: Division matters. Markets-adjacent roles sometimes move faster, especially for summer programs. Engineering can be slower because panel schedules are hard to coordinate. Level matters. More senior roles have longer panel stages because more stakeholders want to interview you. If you have a competing offer with a deadline, tell them. I've heard from multiple people that GS will compress timelines meaningfully when there's a real deadline. Don't bluff but do share real constraints.
The waiting between rounds was the hardest part for me. I got no feedback after the technical screen and had to follow up twice to get a status update. That seems to be normal. The recruiter is usually responsive once you have a named person to email.
Total elapsed time for my path was about 12 weeks. Plan for 8-14 and you won't be surprised.