Prakriti Shetty - Goldman Sachs

Hi everyone!

I’m Prakriti Shetty, a to-be-fourthie in the Chemical Engineering dept. I’m originally from Mangalore, Karnataka but I’ve stayed in Mumbai most of my life. I’m currently interning in a software development profile at Goldman Sachs.

I’m a huge tech enthusiast, and pretty much everything from software dev to AI to hardware to application of tech to unconventional fields excites me. Apart from tech I have varied interests, which include astronomy, reading non-fiction and listening to people’s experiences either through deep conversations or through a select few podcasts.

As you might’ve inferred from my introduction, I was very sure about my inclination for a tech internship, but I was interested in both AI roles as well as development, so I started prepping for the IT/Software as well as the Analytics profile together.

I had an extensive prep plan for DSA where I first covered the theory through a YouTube channel. and then made a master document that compiled a few of the most famous DSA sheets – Strivers, Blind75, Love Babbar etc and problems from the most frequented sites like GFG, LeetCode, InterviewBit etc. The idea of the master sheet was to quantify and segregate the kinds of problems I should touch upon during the course of my preparation. A word of advice: I had this policy of not defining a set number of problems to be completed everyday, because I knew that would be really hard to adhere to considering I had two internships going on simultaneously. What I’m trying to put forth is that don’t stress too much about the quantity of problems, since the clarity in your understanding matters far more.

Fast forward to the third week of July, and I had been practising DSA for the past two months so I had a pretty good level of confidence. Meanwhile my resume had gotten reviewed by atleast 15 seniors and I was very sure that I had a really strong resume so that was one worry off my shoulders. In that last week, I spent time doing puzzles from the standard sites (Gurmeet puzzles, Brainstellar), prepping for aptitude tests and CS fundamentals, and revising all the DSA problems I had solved. Apart from this, I was a little worried about my communication skills so I focused on building interview temperament by watching mock interviews by a select few YouTube channels.

Goldman’s test was fun. It had sections for math(probab/PnC), DSA, analytical writing etc. The interviews followed a week after. I had 2 rounds, the technical one was a normal DSA round, and I was tested on graphs, and the HR round was pretty chill, with a discussion on my projects and past internships and a logical puzzle.

Fast forward to May 2023 and I’m working at the Hyderabad office of Goldman in the Global Compliance division in a software development profile, using some of the most versatile industry-standard techstacks. I can’t spill much about the actual details of the project because of the tight non-disclosure, but I’ll try my best to give you an overall view about my experience.

I’m looking ahead at my last week of internship here at Goldman and the most prominent thought that comes to my mind is that: Boy! Did time just fly past?! It’s been a wonderful experience and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my stint here. If I had to describe my internship experience in one word, it would be - learning. True, it’s a fast-paced financial firm, but Goldman is one of those few firms that focus a lot on self-development and growth apart from the assigned deliverables. I remember compiling all the leadership connects, technical orientations, trainings and networking events we’ve had over the course of these 9 weeks, and there were 27 of them! There was one common thread that bound all these sessions together – the continual reminders on the importance of networking. Apart from making some really good friends among my co-interns, I made it a point to setup calls with senior people from different divisions to understand their work and learn from them. Goldman’s people are their best asset. Even as an intern, you’re welcomed into the family as one of their own, and the people are super helpful and approachable. What you can learn in a day’s worth of self-struggle, half-a-day’s worth of reading, you can learn in under an hour from a person who’s an expert at it.

On the personal side, moving to Hyderabad was the first time I was actually away from home, and I missed my home and my city terribly at first. Right from hunting for PGs to facing a rude shock of the absence of an autorickshaw meter system here, to visiting the Charminar, Golconda Fort and Hussain Sagar Lake , high-end cafes interspersed with Irani dum tea and Biryani and Osmania biscuits (personal recommendation – Rose Shortbread cookies from Karachi Bakery are too good), it’s safe to say that eventually I got accustomed to the city and its ways. Everything’s hard at first, but it gets better along the way.

Work was not cakewalk for sure. Despite prior experience in the techstack, and this relates to something most of us don’t do in insti projects: I came across these junctures during the course of my project where I had to pause and think about the structure of the code that could cater to the scalability we were trying to achieve. Design thinking and a structured way of solving problems definitely tops the list of things I take away with me as I come back to my college life.

There’s just one thing I’d like to leave you guys with, and I’d recommend you to think about it for a while. When you apply for a company in the internship season, would you like to focus on the stipend or the company brand as the be-all-end-all or would you rather focus on the profile of work you want to explore and learn about? A stipend or a brand is not what will bring you to work everyday; the amount of fun you have while doing what you do is what will wake you up with a smile, ready to take on the day.

Make the right decisions, and remember that an internship is the best form of experiential learning you’ve probably ever had up until this point in your life, make the most of it.

Also, feel free to hit me up with questions if you have any!