Africa’s Budding Engineers Meet with Goldman Sachs Engineers in Nigeria

12 MAR 2018

Goldman Sachs engineers from New York and London traveled to Lagos, Nigeria from February 20-23 to discuss summer and full-time analyst positions with students from universities across Africa. 

The Goldman Sachs Africa Recruiting Initiative, which aims to engage and recruit engineering talent across the continent, was launched with a program in Ghana last August. Out of more than 800 applicants for the Lagos event, 200 students were invited to participate in this year’s program, which featured four days of coding quizzes, mock presentations and technical evaluations.

Students were organized into teams and asked to develop a smart budgeting application. Goldman Sachs colleagues were assigned to each team to provide guidance and assess team and individual performance. Each team pitched the overall user experience and technical implementation of their applications to a panel of judges, who selected a winner based on scores for overall pitch, product uniqueness, team effort and technical soundness.

Nyaniki, a vice president in the Securities Division, told the students that she studied in Africa, as well. “It is a privilege to come back and share guidance from my experiences, which will hopefully enable you to explore career opportunities across the globe,” she said.

“The Africa Recruiting Initiative helps Engineering recruit talent from Africa, create global professional opportunities for qualified students and expand our diversity recruiting outreach,” said Lade, a vice president in Engineering Campus Recruiting, who organized the event. High-potential candidates were invited back for a final day of interview prep, application coaching and a technical assessment workshop.

“Whether or not I’m offered an internship, this program has been one of the most fantastic points of my life,” said Emmanuel, a final year engineering student at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. “I really liked the Goldman Sachs people I met and the hands-on support they gave us.”

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