cleared the Goldman Sachs onsite earlier this year. wanted to write up the final round experience because the information out there is mostly from 2021-2023 and the format has shifted.
current format (as of early 2026): fully virtual for most technology roles. they may do in-person for senior/VP-level or certain desks but expect virtual by default. they schedule 4 interviews across a single day or sometimes split across two days.
my day: 9:00am: coding round 1 10:00am: coding round 2 11:30am: system design 1:30pm: behavioral
30-minute breaks between each. that sounds like a lot but you're mentally drained by round 3.
coding rounds. both were in a Google doc. no IDE autocomplete, which matters more than you'd think for a 45-minute interview. one interviewer jumped in when i got stuck and gave a nudge; the other didn't. problems were medium/hard range, both had multiple valid approaches and they wanted to discuss tradeoffs.
system design. i wrote about this separately. very finance-context-heavy. they care about auditability and failure modes more than most.
behavioral. the interviewer was a senior engineer on the team i was interviewing for. not HR. they asked me two main questions and went very deep on each. i used one story for two different questions with different framing and they noticed and called it out gently. have three distinct stories minimum.
debrief timing. mine came 5 business days later. the recruiter called, which is usually a good sign. email-only is riskier. they gave me verbal notice of the outcome before the formal letter arrived.
overall impression. more process-oriented than FAANG, less emphasis on algorithmic cleverness and more on sound engineering judgment and communication. if you've been grinding hard leetcode, dial it back a little and work on your verbal walk-through.