Hey all! I’m Dhruv Piyush Rambhia, a 4th year (T-T) student in the CSE Department. I’m from Mumbai, lived here my whole life, been through it all! My interests broadly include sports and trekking but I in general enjoy anything even remotely fun for most people. Academically, I am interested in the Systems side of CS, Finance and FinTech, history and current affairs, although I have also decided to explore my long-lost love for physics if I can somehow. I did a research internship at TU Braunschweig last year and even wrote a blog post about it here
I did another internship in the winter of my 3rd year at FinIQ Consulting although I haven’t written about it yet 😛 (hola InSight 👋)
Goldman Sachs has been coming to IIT Bombay for internships/placements for ages, at least since 2015 for placements. It is a Day 1 Company for the intern season. It has a very well-planned and curated internship program which they’ve been running across the globe for years now. It is a prestigious company and one of the oldest investment banks, a Wall Street biggie. I decided to apply for this internship because I wanted an experience in the corporate world and GS seemed like an ideal start to explore both Tech and Finance, coupled with the fact that it was a Day 1 company.
The selection process starts off with a test. One great thing about GS is that it allows people from all departments to sign the IAF and they are department-agnostic during the selections as well since their final selections had 4 CSE, 4 Chemical, 1 EP and 1 EE Btech interns. The test has 2 relatively simple coding questions, some aptitude questions and 2 essay-type questions in which you need to write about yourself (this is to the best of my knowledge, I don’t remember exactly). After the test, they have several rounds of interviews. One very important difference with GS is that interviews are not sequential. This means that each interview is independent of the previous one except the first round is like a cutoff round. The reasoning behind this is that each interview is taken by a senior from a particular division or team and if they like you, they take you in their team, so every panellist takes responsibility for their selections. Most interviews are one-on-one and very relaxed, there is no pressure or grinding, in fact, the interviewers are very helpful and make your experience pretty pleasant. The interviewers ask Software, Finance or Quant questions along with personal and aptitude questions depending on which team they’re recruiting for.
I did not prepare specifically for this internship. I did some coding practice by solving CP questions, but definitely not as much as what is required for an SDE role. I had done an online course on Financial Markets since I was interested in Finance. I gave the Aptitude and Coding Tests conducted by the IC Team in the summers but that was it.
I was part of the Corporate Treasury Division and worked in a Strats role. The role of a Strat is to make models and strategies. It involved understanding the Financial aspect of a problem, ideating and brainstorming on it to convert it into Mathematical and Computational Problems and then coding it up. It is neither a pure Finance role nor a Software role; it involves a lot of ideation, thinking and quantitative analysis, people having a background in Maths, CSE, Optimization or Systems would be familiar with such problems. I worked on an interesting project which involved coding an Optimization problem in Python, the details of which I, unfortunately, cannot reveal due to business reasons 🙁
The experience of shifting to Bengaluru was not very smooth. One has to look for PGs close to the office and this experience is often unpleasant for a lot of people. The language barrier can be an issue outside the office. Goldman Sachs does help out by providing travel both ways and accommodation for a week in which one can look for PGs. In general, they are helpful with the logistics part.
The experience of working in GS has been absolutely amazing and it is something that all the interns cherish! I’ll try to write what I loved about GS in points although this in no way covers the entire list:
- Goldman Sachs is known for its wonderful culture and great care is taken to maintain this culture. From Day 1, one thing which is emphasized is that the best thing about GS is its people and over a period of time, I realized how true this was! I can say with confidence that I met some of the most amazing people ever during my internship, be it co-interns, teammates, seniors or staff.
- Despite having a deep hierarchical structure, it feels like there’s a flat hierarchy in GS. One can talk to anyone, from Analysts to MDs without any hesitation and not only is such interaction normal, but in fact welcomed. People are very responsive and willing to listen to your ideas and even bond with you on non-work interests. This helps to build your professional network immensely.
- The campus is very pleasant. The campus has its own cafeteria which serves 4 meals a day, one of the largest and most modern gyms in the city, a Wellness Centre and even turfs! The workspace is wonderfully designed and there are ample facilities for every need right next to you.
- The work that everyone does is valuable in GS. Unlike some companies where work done by interns is discarded or shitty work is given to interns, in GS, interns are given serious projects which Analysts themselves work on. Your work is expected to be of the highest quality and it is carefully evaluated. Many people get to see the real impact of their work and see the deployment of their work in production.
- The work hours and location are flexible. GS provides cabs for interns throughout the day so travel is very convenient any time of the day. In general, GS is very flexible about its policies such as the dress code as long as you adhere to some basic principles and get your work done.
- You get to work with a global team. It is very common to have different members of your team in London, HK or NYC.
- GS has a lot of events of ALL kinds throughout the year, especially for interns! You have seminars and talks on Tech and Finance all the time. There are sports events and competitions, a lot of celebrations and office parties. One gets the opportunity to participate in Community Teamworks as well which is a fun experience. Due to these frequent events, one can pursue their interests all the time.
At the same time, here are some disadvantages and challenges which I faced during the internship:
- The location of the GS Campus is in one of the most unpleasant parts of Bengaluru, the part known for horrible traffic jams, bad public infrastructure and high rents.
- Although GS has a lot of facilities, all of them like the gym, turf, and cafeteria are paid. The cafeteria is slightly expensive in my opinion and the food is not as good as I expected.
- Due to global teams, your working hours can be very skewed because of teams in places like NYC, you might have to stay late or for HK-based teams, you might have to log in early.
- Since the work allotted is project dependent, you might end up with a project which doesn’t suit your tastes. At the same time, it is common to feel that one did not learn anything new from the internship. This is because some of the skills used in GS are not valued outside of GS. A lot of the elements in the Tech stack that GS uses are its own proprietary firmwide or even just divisions-wide such as the programming language, databases, frameworks etc. Hence, these skills become redundant once you leave the firm. Moreover, it is possible that your project doesn’t involve any new things and is just an implementation heavy project in which case as well, you can be left feeling unsatisfied.
For juniors who wish to pursue an internship in GS, here are some tips:
- If you clear the test, be confident in the interview. Soft skills are valued very highly in the firm and your soft skills will be tested in the interview. Ensure that you are polite, frank and have done your research well.
- Sort out the logistics in advance.
- Make the most of the people around you. Don’t be shy and talk to as many people as you can, make meaningful connections with them and learn what happens in the different parts of the firm. The firm is huge and this is the best way to get acquainted with even 1% of the work that the firm does.
To conclude, I would just like to say that GS is one of the best internship experiences that one can get and it rewards handsomely. There is so much that the firm has to offer if you keep your mind open and it’s all a matter of how much you can absorb in the end 🙂
