Company : BARCLAYS
Role : Summer Technology Intern
Drive : Technology Intern Drive (Aug 2025)
Batch : 2027
ONLINE ASSESSMENT
Date : 9 Aug 2025
Shortlisting :
Company Criteria 10th & 12th 70% CGPA : 7
Around 250 Students were shortlisted for OA.
(Try to be in the top 200 students in the college for better chances, no matter the criteria)
Questions : 15 MCQs (OOPs, JAVA, Fundamentals of CS) + 5 SQL Queries
I was able to solve 4 / 5 SQL Queries. The questions were medium-level SQL queries (LeetCode 50 SQL Journey should be enough).
Results : Announced on 12 Aug 2025
Verdict : Selected, Around 40 people made it to the next round
INTERVIEWS
Date : 25 Aug 2025
Shortlisting : Based on OA
Rounds : 2 R1 (Tech + HR) R2 (Tech + HR)
The Interview had 2 rounds, both were technical + HR rounds.
INTERVIEW :
ROUND 1 45min :
The Interview started with my Introduction.
Then he moved to the technical part.
He asked me to explain how I implemented SDLC in my project. I misunderstood it as some other stuff, something related to System Design, but I asked him to elaborate on what SDLC was. The interviewer was a bit disappointed in me. He said, “You don't know Software Development Life Cycle?” When he said the SDLC full form, it then clicked to me what he meant. I then clarified it to him and explained what SDLC is and chose a project to explain to him how I implemented it. He was satisfied with my explanation.
He then asked me to explain the 4 OOPs pillars, then asked me to explain how I implemented each pillar in my project.
I explained each concept and how it was implemented in my project.
Later, he asked me how modular the code written in my project was, to which I explained my project structure and why I chose that project structure, why the .jsx files were segregated the way they were. To which he seemed happy and satisfied.
Later, he gave me a pen and paper and said, “I will give you an array, I will pass it in via a function parameter, and I must get an array back sorted in descending order. Internally, you must implement quick sort.”
I wrote the code. Of course, since it was on pen and paper, syntax and compilation were not the things being checked. He checked the way I wrote the code. Thankfully, I had kept it modular, where I had created a separate function to call quicksort and a separate partition() function with proper naming conventions.
I explained to him how the code sorted things in reverse order and its time complexity.
Later, it was the HR part of the interview.
He asked me to pick a scenario where I had to choose between conflicting situations in a team and explain to me how I handled it, with my reasoning behind it.
I chose a scenario from my SIH hackathon experience and explained it to him.
He asked me to tell him how I chose a tech stack for a project and why.
Here as well, I explained the SIH project tech stack where we were to choose pre-trained image interpolation models, where we compared GPU performance, frame generation times, and load on the system.
Later, he asked me if I had any questions.
I asked him about his journey at Barclays and how Barclays as an organisation helped him shape his career. He seemed to like the question and explained his side at Barclays.
Round 1 Results : 24 out of 40 were selected in round 2. I was one of them.
ROUND 2 45min:
Again, I introduced myself. This time, I explained to him why banking has been in my family since my childhood, as my grandpa was working in SBI. This seemed to give me a good start.
He then moved to a technical part and asked me how proficient I was in JAVA.
I said I would rate myself 8/10 at JAVA at the college level, as CPP has been a big part of my coding journey. Yet academically, we had OOPs in JAVA and have practiced small projects in JAVA.
He asked me what a race condition is.
It was a little bit of silence in the room while I was trying to recall, but then he said, “Do you know deadlock?”
Then I explained to him what a deadlock is. Then he asked me how I would handle it.
I said I would apply mutex locks to avoid deadlocks and explained to him how they would avoid deadlocks.
He then asked me what synchronous functions in Java are and how they are different from async functions.
I explained what a synchronous function in Java is and how it is different from async functions.
He then moved to Java Collections and asked me about it.
Again, I said they are similar to what STL is in CPP. I leaned my answer more towards explaining STL than Collections, as I was not familiar with Java Collections.
Then was the HR part of the interview.
He asked me about RISES, their core values.
I had read about it earlier and was able to answer them.
Then he asked me about Barclays Mindsets.
This was new to me, and I had never heard it before. I told him I had no idea what they were, but let me make a guess: “Barclays Mindset is to be the leading bank in US and UK markets,” and explained to him how Barclays is currently doing in global markets.
He smiled and said, “Good, but these are not what Barclays Mindsets are.”
I then asked him what those were, as I would love to hear them from him.
He explained the mindsets, “Empower, Drive, Challenge.” He said it was good that I asked for it and did not just leave it.
Then again, he gave me some similar scenarios as Round 1 and asked if I had any questions.
I asked him the same question about his journey at Barclays and what was his side of the story at Barclays.
Again, he explained to me what he does at Barclays, how his journey has been so far, and what learnings I can take from his experience.
Then I asked him how AI is being used for coding in the corporate industry currently, since banks need to be secure.
He explained to me how new agents are being used at Barclays.
Final Round 2 : Final Results were announced. 16 out of 24 were selected, and I was one of them.
Later this year, I had the opportunity to Intern at Barclays and receive a PPO Offer.
