The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Barclays in Oct 2010
Interview
I met with them a college career fair and at first was excited. After a long online application, I found out I qualified for an interview. I went for the interview and was suprised. Never was I told that it was going to be at all technical. The first question was, are you willing to write some code. I said sure, as I started writing, before I was done they were questioning my methods. The interview consisted of 2 technical questions (linked lists and strings), followed by personal questions. The question that most threw me was "why do you want to work for an investment banking company." I had struggled with that same question online, and didn't expect to get it again... Overall the interview didn't go well, and I don't expect to hear from them again.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Why do you want to work for an investment banking firm?
The interview felt less like an assessment of Java engineering ability and more like a pub quiz for obscure syntax trivia. Instead of exploring problem-solving, design decisions, debugging skills, or real-world development experience, the focus seemed to be on recalling exact language details that most professional developers would simply look up in seconds.
It's a curious hiring strategy: rejecting people who know how to build software because they can't instantly recite syntax that modern IDEs autocomplete for them anyway
Overall, the process felt outdated, disconnected from how software is actually written, and more reflective of academic memorisation than professional engineering competence.
Initial CGPA based screening.
Three rounds in total post that.
First eliminatory round consisted of DSA and sql round for screening.
Difficulty Leet Code Medium.Strings question.
Pen paper DSA in person. Leet Code Easy. A sorting variant.
HR or behavioural round.
Final verdict: Selected
I arrived at the Barclays Munich office on Leopoldstraße. A friendly recruiter named Katharina welcomed me. We discussed Java microservices, Kubernetes deployments, and team culture. The atmosphere felt professional yet relaxed. Overall, a positive experience.