Barclays — Technology Developer Intern | Hack-O-Hire, Interview & Internship Journey
I’m sharing my journey with Barclays, from participating in the Hack-O-Hire hackathon to clearing the interview process, joining as a Technology Developer Intern, working on projects within Risk, Finance & Treasury (RFT), and eventually receiving a Pre-Placement Offer (PPO).
What started with a college-level PPT round eventually turned into one of the most valuable learning experiences of my college journey.
🏢 1. Company and Role
Company: Barclays
Role: Technology Developer Intern
Internship Duration: 15 June 2026 – 7 August 2026
Area: Risk, Finance & Treasury (RFT)
Outcome: Pre-Placement Offer (PPO)
🚀 2. How It Started — Hack-O-Hire
My journey with Barclays started through the Hack-O-Hire hackathon, which was conducted as part of the campus recruitment process.
A limited number of colleges were selected to participate, and my college shortlisted students for the first round, which was a PPT presentation conducted within the college.
In the PPT round, we had to present our idea and approach for the given problem statement.
After clearing the PPT round, we moved on to the actual hackathon, where we had to build a product and present our solution.
Our team didn't end up winning the hackathon, but we got the opportunity to move forward in the selection process and appear for interviews with Barclays.
That opportunity eventually led to my internship.
📝 3. Selection Process
My overall journey was:
PPT Round (in college) → Hackathon / Product Building → Project Presentation → Technical Interview → HR Interview → Internship → PPO
The hackathon was particularly interesting because it wasn't just about presenting an idea.
We had to take the idea through the product-building cycle — understanding the problem, deciding on an approach, building the product and presenting the final solution.
It gave me an opportunity to demonstrate not only my technical skills, but also how I approached a problem, made decisions and worked with my team.
🎤 4. Interview Experience
After the hackathon and project presentation, I went through two interview rounds:
Technical Interview: Approximately 1 hour
HR / Behavioral Interview
The interviews focused mainly on my projects, Computer Science fundamentals, problem-solving ability and how I approached different situations.
🧠 5. Technical Interview
The technical round started with a normal introduction and a brief conversation about my background.
After that, the discussion moved into technical topics from different areas of Computer Science.
The interviewer also focused on understanding the reasoning behind the technical decisions I had made in my projects.
🧩 Projects
A significant part of the discussion revolved around my projects.
I was asked to explain the projects I had worked on, how they were built, and the reasoning behind some of the technical choices I had made.
One interesting question was:
"Why didn't you use a HashMap instead of a Queue in your project?"
This led to a deeper discussion about the data structure I had selected and why it was appropriate for that particular use case.
🗂️ HashMap & Collisions
The discussion then went deeper into HashMaps, including:
How collisions occur
Collision-handling techniques
How collisions can be reduced
How HashMaps maintain efficient lookup performance
This was a good reminder that interviewers can take something from your project and explore how deeply you understand the concepts behind your implementation.
💻 Operating Systems
The OS discussion included topics such as:
Deadlocks
Deadlock avoidance
Different approaches to handling deadlocks
🐧 Linux
I was also asked about some basic Linux commands and their usage.
🗄️ Databases
Database fundamentals were also part of the technical discussion.
📊 DSA
The interview also included Data Structures and Algorithms and questions related to problem-solving and complexity.
Overall, the technical round wasn't simply a fixed list of questions. The discussion evolved based on my answers, particularly around my projects and the reasoning behind my technical decisions.
🤝 6. HR / Behavioral Interview
The HR round started with a normal introduction and a formal conversation about my background.
A major part of the discussion focused on how I approach situations while building projects and working with others.
We discussed topics such as:
How I approach the product-building cycle
How I would approach different situations while building a product
How I would react when requirements or circumstances change
Situations where I had taken responsibility
Experiences where I faced challenges
How I responded to those situations
How I work with others while building something
The discussion was less about having a perfect answer and more about understanding how I think, communicate, take responsibility and respond to challenges.
🎉 7. Getting the Internship
After completing the interview process, I was fortunate enough to receive the opportunity to join Barclays as a Technology Developer Intern.
I joined on 15 June 2026.
Going from participating in a college PPT round, to building a product during the hackathon, to appearing for interviews and eventually joining Barclays as an intern was a very rewarding experience.
🏦 8. My Internship Experience
During my internship, I was part of the Risk, Finance & Treasury (RFT) area.
I had the opportunity to work on two projects, which gave me exposure to different aspects of software development in a professional environment.
One of the biggest learning experiences was getting exposure to production-level development.
Coming from a college environment, I was used to building projects where the primary focus was getting the functionality to work.
The internship helped me understand that professional software development involves much more than that.
I got exposure to things such as:
Writing maintainable and readable code
Understanding existing systems before making changes
Following established development practices
Considering different scenarios and edge cases
Testing and validating changes
Debugging issues systematically
Understanding how different components interact
Communicating with teammates while working on a solution
Taking feedback and improving the implementation
Thinking about reliability and maintainability
These were things that are difficult to fully appreciate through college projects alone.
💻 9. Learning Production-Level Development
One of my biggest takeaways from the internship was realizing that writing code is only one part of software engineering.
In a professional environment, understanding the existing problem and context is often just as important as the implementation itself.
I got to experience the process of understanding requirements, exploring possible approaches, discussing solutions, implementing changes, testing them and incorporating feedback.
I also learned the importance of writing code that can be understood and maintained by others, rather than focusing only on making something work.
This experience gave me a better understanding of:
Code quality
Maintainability
Debugging
Testing
Collaboration
Ownership
Working with existing codebases
Incorporating feedback
The internship helped me see the difference between building a project for yourself and building software as part of a larger engineering team.
🤝 10. Working with the Team
Another major highlight of the internship was the people I worked with.
Everyone was extremely helpful and approachable.
Being around experienced professionals gave me the opportunity to learn by observing how they approached problems, discussed solutions and reviewed implementations.
Whenever I got stuck, I could ask questions and learn from the reasoning behind the solution.
This made the internship much more than just a technical learning experience.
It taught me the importance of:
Asking the right questions
Communicating clearly
Being open to feedback
Taking ownership
Learning from mistakes
Working effectively as part of a team
It also showed me that good engineering is not just about individual technical ability — collaboration and communication are equally important.
🌱 11. From College to the Corporate World
One of my biggest takeaways from the internship was experiencing the transition from college projects to professional software development.
In college, we are often given a clearly defined problem and expected to build a solution.
In a professional environment, understanding the problem, the existing context and the requirements can be a significant part of the work.
The internship gave me an opportunity to experience that difference firsthand — understanding requirements, exploring approaches, discussing ideas with teammates, implementing solutions, testing them and learning through feedback.
It pushed me outside my comfort zone and gave me a much clearer perspective on what it means to contribute as an engineer in the real world.
🎯 12. Final Outcome
My internship at Barclays concluded on 7 August 2026.
The two months were filled with learning, challenges, new experiences and a lot of growth.
I got the opportunity to work on real projects, understand production-level development, collaborate with experienced professionals and experience what it is like to work in a professional engineering environment.
And the best part of the journey:
I was fortunate enough to receive a Pre-Placement Offer (PPO) from Barclays.
From participating in the PPT round in college, to building a product during Hack-O-Hire, to getting the interview opportunity, joining as an intern, and finally receiving a PPO — this has been an incredibly rewarding journey.
I’m grateful to everyone who supported me throughout the process and especially to the people I had the opportunity to work with during my internship.
The hackathon may not have ended with a trophy, but it ended up opening a much bigger door.
