Trainee Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at HSBC with 3.1 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 91% positive. To compare, the company-average is 64.7% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Trainee Software Engineer roles take an average of 1 day to get hired, when considering 16 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at HSBC overall takes an average of 30 days.
Common stages of the interview process at HSBC as a Trainee Software Engineer according to 16 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 27%
Skills test: 18%
IQ intelligence test: 18%
Background check: 12%
Personality test: 9%
Group panel interview: 6%
Presentation: 6%
Other: 3%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through college or university. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at HSBC in Aug 2025
Interview
The process consisted of 3 rounds.
1st round- The shortlisted students had an online assessment. 3 DSA questions(medium level)
2nd round- Technical interview (OOPS, DBMS, easy coding question, programming language basics)
3rd round- HR Round (basic HR questions)
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Technical round
Introduction
Explain the research paper mentioned in my resume(in detail)
What is ranking, partitioning in SQL
OOPS concepts with examples
It is based on the interviewer My interview experience was good but i am not selected and they covered all the basics and covers all points in resume basics of sql python questions and basic coding and also operating system questions networking questions
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
they covered all the basics and covers all points in resume basics of sql python questions and basic coding and also operating system questions networking questions
It was good.They covered all the core CS subjects which includes OS,DBMS,SQL,CN and even on some cloud technologies.overall experience is good fair interview.There were so many panels during interview and overall good
Once you clear online assessments, the on-campus interview rounds begin.
Technical Interview:
Self-introduction, discussion of your project(s) and resume. Then there were questions on OOPs, sorting algorithms, data structures, basic system design questions (entities, classes) and some easy puzzles.
If you clear this round, then you will have the HR round directly.
Questions like: Tell me something not on your resume, Why HSBC, past teamwork/leadership, how you deal with pressure or conflicting feedback.
The interviewers were generally friendly from my experience and from the experience of other candidates too.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
One of the questions they asked was:
“Walk me through a technical challenge you faced in a project and how you solved it.”
I described a performance issue I encountered while building a web application, where inefficient database queries slowed response time. I walked through how I identified the bottleneck using logs and query profiling, optimized the queries using indexing, and validated improvements through testing.
They wanted to evaluate structured problem-solving, clarity of thought, and ability to translate technical work into business value.