Barclays — Technology Developer Intern | Hack-O-Hire, Interview & Internship Journey
I’m sharing my journey with Barclays, starting from the Hack-O-Hire campus recruitment process, going through the interview rounds, joining as a Technology Developer Intern, working within Fraud Technologies, 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
Batch/Year of Graduation: 2027
Branch: Computer Engineering (CE)
Hiring Process: On-Campus Hack-O-Hire
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.
The first stage was a PPT round conducted within the college. We had to present our approach to the given problem statement and explain how we would approach building a solution.
After clearing the PPT round, we moved on to the actual Hack-O-Hire hackathon, where we had to build a product based on the problem statement and present our solution.
This stage was very different from simply preparing a presentation. We had to actually think about the problem, decide on an approach, divide responsibilities within the team, build the product and finally demonstrate what we had created.
Our team did not end up winning the hackathon, but we were able to move forward in the Barclays selection process.
📝 3. Selection Process
My overall journey through the Barclays recruitment process was:
PPT Round (in college) → Hackathon / Product Building → Project Presentation → Technical Interview → HR Interview → Internship → PPO
The interesting part of the process was that every stage tested something slightly different.
The PPT round tested how we could present and communicate an idea.
The hackathon tested our ability to actually build a product and work as a team.
The project presentation tested whether we could explain and defend our solution.
The interviews then focused on technical knowledge, projects, problem-solving and behavioral aspects.
What initially started as a college-level recruitment activity eventually led to an internship opportunity at Barclays.
🎤 4. Interview Experience
After the Hack-O-Hire process and project presentation, I went through two interview rounds:
Technical Interview → HR / Behavioral Interview
The Technical round lasted around 25 minutes, while the HR round lasted around 15 minutes.
One thing I noticed throughout the interviews was that the discussion was heavily influenced by what I mentioned in my introduction and the projects I had worked on.
So one of my biggest takeaways was:
Anything you mention in your introduction or resume can become a question. Be prepared to go deeper than the surface level.
🧠 5. Technical Interview
The technical round started with the usual "Tell me about yourself".
I introduced myself as an ML developer with around 10 months of experience as an ML intern.
From there, the interviewer started asking questions around Python, debugging and Machine Learning.
🐍 Python & Error Handling
The interviewer asked:
What do you use for Machine Learning?
I mentioned that I primarily use Python and Jupyter notebooks.
This led to questions around debugging and error handling:
What do you do when you encounter an error in Python code?
How do you handle errors in Python?
Do you think error handling is necessary for frontend or user-interactive applications?
I explained my approach of first identifying the type and source of the error and then using techniques such as debugging,
1print1try/except🤖 6. Project Discussion — The Highlight of the Technical Round
The interview then moved towards my recent project, and this was probably the strongest part of my interview.
I went deep into the project and explained:
The ML algorithms I used
Why I selected those algorithms
The reasoning behind my architectural decisions
How the model worked
Why different components were used
The interviewer then asked me to explain the architecture of the model.
I explained the core idea behind Bi-LSTMs and how they work with sequential information.
Rather than making the explanation unnecessarily mathematical, I tried to explain neural networks and the model using simple examples, including a cats-vs-dogs analogy.
The discussion went particularly well, and the interviewer seemed impressed by how I was able to explain the ML concepts in a simple and understandable way.
💡 Biggest takeaway from this section
Don't just memorize:
"I used Bi-LSTM."
Know:
Why Bi-LSTM?
How does Bi-LSTM work?
Why was it suitable for this problem?
What alternatives could have been used?
What happens inside the model?
If you genuinely worked on a project, this can become one of the strongest sections of your interview.
🐍 7. Python Internals
After the project discussion, the interviewer moved towards some more Python concepts, I was asked:
"What different flavours of Python do you know?"
"What is
1meta"What are synchronous and asynchronous functions in Python?"
📝 8. Technical Interview Feedback
I asked the interviewer for feedback at the end.
He specifically mentioned that he liked the way I explained Bi-LSTMs and neural networks using simple examples, such as cats and dogs.
🤝 9. HR / Behavioral Interview
The HR round was much more relaxed and felt more like a conversation than a formal interview.
The questions included:
Tell me about yourself.
Why is teamwork important? Would you prefer working in a team or independently?
How would you resolve a conflict in a team?
Tell me about your first hackathon win. How did you celebrate it?
Have you ever spoken up against an organisation or a senior?
What do you do in your free time?
There weren't any particularly technical questions.
The focus was more on understanding how I communicate, work with others and approach different situations.
💬 10. The Conversation at the End
Towards the end of the HR interview, I asked:
"Would you want me to elaborate on anything?"
The interviewer said no and mentioned that the discussion was more of a chit-chat.
I then asked:
"How can I optimise my work as an intern in a financial firm?"
That question led to a surprisingly useful conversation.
He spent around 10 minutes explaining what an intern can realistically expect during an 8-week internship, how to make the most of the experience and how work generally happens in a financial organisation.
That conversation gave me a much better understanding of what I could expect if I got the opportunity to join Barclays.
🎉 11. Getting the Internship
After completing the interview process, I was fortunate enough to receive the opportunity to join Barclays as a Technology Developer Intern.
What started with a college PPT round had now progressed through:
PPT → Hackathon → Project Presentation → Technical Interview → HR Interview → Internship
And that was only the beginning of the journey.
🏦 11. My Internship at Barclays
After completing the interview process, I got the opportunity to join Barclays as a Technology Developer Intern.
I was part of the Fraud Technologies team, where I had the opportunity to work on one project during my internship.
The biggest difference I noticed between college projects and working in an organisation like Barclays was the scale and discipline involved in software development.
In college, my primary goal was usually straightforward — make the project work.
At Barclays, I realised that making something work is only the starting point.
A solution also needs to be:
Readable and maintainable
Properly tested
Reliable across different scenarios
Compatible with existing systems
Easy for other developers to understand and work with
I worked on a full stack project which I was supposed to build from scratch. During the internship, I got exposure to areas such as debugging, testing, handling edge cases, understanding how different components interact, following established development practices and incorporating feedback from experienced developers.
These are things that are easy to underestimate when most of your experience comes from academic or personal projects.
💻 12. Understanding What Production-Level Development Actually Means
One of my biggest takeaways from the internship was understanding that software engineering is much more than writing code.
A large part of the work happens before and after the actual implementation.
I got to experience the process of:
Understanding the requirement → Exploring the existing system → Thinking about possible approaches → Discussing the solution → Implementing it → Testing it → Debugging issues → Taking feedback → Improving the implementation
That process made me appreciate things like code quality, maintainability, testing and reliability much more than I had before.
I also learnt that when working on a real system, your code isn't just for you.
Someone else might have to read it six months later, modify it, debug it or build something on top of it.
That changes the way you think about implementation.
The internship helped me understand the difference between:
"I built this project."
and
"I contributed to software that is part of a larger system."
That distinction was probably one of the most valuable things I took away from the experience.
🤝 13. Learning From the People Around Me
Apart from the technical experience, the people I worked with were a huge part of the internship.
Everyone I interacted with was approachable and willing to help whenever I got stuck.
Working alongside experienced developers gave me the opportunity to see how problems are approached in a professional environment — how people reason about different solutions, review code, discuss trade-offs and deal with issues.
I also became more comfortable with asking questions.
In college, there can sometimes be a tendency to try to figure everything out yourself because you don't want to bother someone else.
During the internship, I realised that asking the right question at the right time is often much more productive than spending hours going in the wrong direction.
The experience taught me a lot about:
Communicating clearly
Asking better questions
Taking ownership
Accepting feedback
Learning from mistakes
Collaborating with others
It also reinforced something I had heard many times before but understood much better after experiencing it:
Good engineering isn't just about how technically strong you are. It's also about how effectively you work with the people around you.
🌱 14. From College Projects to the Corporate World
The internship gave me my first real opportunity to experience the transition from college-level development to professional software engineering.
In college, the problem is often already defined for you.
You know what needs to be built, you build it, test whether it works and submit it.
In a professional environment, there is much more context involved.
You need to understand the requirement properly, figure out how the existing system works, think about the impact of your changes and consider what could go wrong.
Working at Barclays exposed me to that process firsthand.
It pushed me outside the way I was used to working and made me think more carefully about the decisions I make while developing something.
More importantly, it gave me a much clearer idea of what it actually means to contribute as an engineer rather than just build projects as a student.
🎯 15. The Final Outcome — PPO
My internship at Barclays concluded on 7 August 2026.
The two months were packed with new experiences, challenges, learning and a lot of growth.
I got the opportunity to work on real projects, experience professional software development, learn from experienced people and understand how engineering works at an organisation like Barclays.
And the best part of the journey was that I was fortunate enough to receive a Pre-Placement Offer (PPO) from Barclays. 🎉
Looking back, the journey feels quite surreal:
PPT Round → Hack-O-Hire → Project Presentation → Technical Interview → HR Interview → Internship → PPO
It started with a college-level PPT and eventually turned into an opportunity to work at Barclays and continue my journey with the organisation.
The hackathon didn't end with a trophy, but it ended up opening a much bigger door.
I’m genuinely grateful to everyone who supported me throughout this journey and especially to the people I had the opportunity to work with during my internship.
From trying to clear a college recruitment process to receiving a PPO — it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my college journey. 🚀
