I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Barclays (Pune) in Feb 2013
Interview
There were two rounds of telephonic interviews and one round of face to face interview. Easy to answer the questions. Person who were nice and good to talk to. They were interested in what I have done. They were looking to satisfy minimal requirement from the role as well.
Overall a positive experience.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
how is option pricing done
Smart pointers impl in c++
Casting
couple of data structure and complexity related questions
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Overall, the process felt outdated, disconnected from how software is actually written, and more reflective of academic memorisation than professional engineering competence.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.
