A VP-level software engineer is complaining about his Goldman Sachs offer

Now that software engineers are afflicted by unemployment and cost-cutting, they are also afflicted by the vagaries of trying to find a job in a saturated market. They have taken to Reddit to complain.

Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.

Writing on Reddit's Goldman Sachs forum, one software engineer complains that he went through the recruitment process for an engineering job in Goldman's Dallas office, and that he'd already cleared interviews and participated in "informal onboarding discussions" when the offer was unexpectedly rescinded. 

That was a few months ago. More recently, he claims that Goldman's recruiting team approached him directly to offer him a vice president (VP) role. There were some "good conversations" until suddenly the job was downgraded to associate "with a significant pay decrease" shortly before interview. 

Goldman Sachs' only comment for this article was that it doesn't comment on internet rumour. However, it's understood that the firm also doesn't rescind official offers. Does it rescind unofficial offers or reserve the right to downgrade job titles during the application process? Maybe.

There is speculation (on Reddit) that the sudden disappearance of the VP level software role is related to "Project Voyage" - Goldman's program for shifting senior staff to low-cost locations, and to the recent culling of 3-5% of staff, most of whom were at VP level and many of whom were software engineers. Hiring new VP software engineers looks counterintuitive for the moment.

One Goldman insider says it's not unheard of for verbal offers to lateral candidates to be rescinded at the firm. But he says this kind of thing isn't restricted to Goldman Sachs. "The process from verbal offer to final approval is two to three weeks long and is at the mercy of whatever the COO and CAOs are thinking about at that moment." 

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libellous (in which case it won’t.)