I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Barclays (London, England) in July 2011
Interview
Have been contacted by recruiter and immediately given Web-based test consisted of 30 questions. Test should have been completed within 20 minutes. After getting 95% on test results, recruiter called back to me and asked if I want to go further and secure interview time with BarCamp at Canary Wharf office.
Within next 15 days I got interview at Canary Wharf office of BarCap. The person interviewed me was Team Lead of development sub-group. Interviewer was relaxed and made the atmosphere comfortable for me. Questions were mostly on past experience and general computer science topics like Agile Methodologies, C# syntax, C# lambda expressions, collections, nullable types, web services, and multi-threading
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why are you studying MS Computer Science if you got 1st class degree in Applied Math at your undergrad
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Overall, the process felt outdated, disconnected from how software is actually written, and more reflective of academic memorisation than professional engineering competence.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.