During my final year at PICT, I received three offers: Northern Trust (PPO), Dell Technologies (PPO), and eQ Technologic (on-campus SDE). I chose eQ, where I worked from January 2025 to March 2026, aligning with my priorities at the time. I applied to Barclays through their careers portal with a referral. My motivation was to explore a diversified opportunity in the fintech domain and build upon the experience I had gained earlier with Northern Trust.

The HR team conducted a background check and explained Barclays’ hybrid work model and location. They wanted to confirm if I was comfortable with these aspects and asked why I was interested in joining Barclays. Since this was an off-campus opportunity, there was no online assessment round.

This round was conducted virtually by two AVPs. After my introduction and a discussion of my internships, the interviewers moved into questions aligned with the job description. On the backend side, they focused on Spring Boot, asking me to explain how JPA works, how entity relationships are managed, and how architectural decisions are made when designing scalable systems. For the frontend, the questions revolved around React. I was asked to explain how memoization of components helps optimize performance, how useRef can be applied in practical scenarios, and how different CSS compilation and bundling strategies affect the efficiency of a project. The conversation was detailed and engaging, lasting about an hour, and I wrapped up by asking about the product I would potentially be working on at Barclays.

One week later, I attended the second round at Barclays’ campus, which was taken by two VPs. This round was purely technical and tested my depth in full stack development. We began with core Java, where I was asked to compare interfaces and abstract classes, explain when each should be used, and discuss whether abstract classes with default functions could replace interfaces in certain cases. The discussion then moved into multithreading, covering ExecutorService, the lifecycle of threads, and strategies for scaling applications to handle millions of users with low latency. I was also asked to explain the internals of ConcurrentHashMap and why it is preferred in concurrent environments.

At this point, the interviewers also brought up my academic background, noting that I was the first ranker in Computer Engineering at PICT. They asked me to share my journey of achieving that rank and posed a few cross questions around the challenges I faced and how I maintained consistency throughout.

From there, the focus shifted to Spring Boot. I was asked about writing JPA queries, managing entity relationships, and designing microservices with event-driven architecture. On the frontend side, the questions centered around routing in React, as well as the useMemo and useRef hooks, and how they contribute to performance and maintainability. Toward the end, we discussed my experience at eQ Technologic, diving into the product I had worked on and the design decisions I had made. I concluded by asking about the technologies I would get exposure to in Barclays’ product.

The HR round focused on Barclays’ values framework (RISES). I was asked scenario-based questions such as leading a team through a crisis, helping a colleague while managing my own priorities, and demonstrating resilience. My advice is to prepare stories in STAR format for each value, as this helps structure your answers clearly.

After clearing the HR round, I had a salary discussion call where I shared my expectations. About a week later, I received the offer with my expected compensation.

The process was thorough yet structured, with each round testing different aspects of my skills and mindset. For anyone preparing, I’d recommend brushing up on core Java, Spring Boot, React fundamentals, and preparing value-based stories for the HR round.

All the best to those aspiring for Barclays or similar opportunities!