🌟 My Barclays Internship Interview Experience

🏷️ Introduction

Hello, my name is Tirthraj Mahajan. I am a third-year student at PICT, Pune. I had the opportunity to interview for the Summer Internship role at Barclays. Here's a breakdown of my experience:

📝 1st Round - Online Assessment

📌 The Online Assessment (OA) was conducted on the HackerEarth platform with a duration of 1.5 hours.

🔹 Structure of the Test:

✅ 12 MCQ Questions (Based on topics like OOP, Java, Exception Handling, DSA, DBMS, etc.)
🟢 Difficulty Level: Easy

✅ 2 Coding Questions:

1 SQL-based question
1 DSA question related to String Manipulation
🟡 Difficulty Level: Easy to Medium

💻 2nd Round - Technical Interview

📌 After clearing the OA, I was shortlisted for the interview process.
⏳ Duration: 60 minutes
📄 Format: Majorly resume-based

Nearly all the questions, except for the Java-related ones, were based on the keywords in my resume. This means the questions asked to other candidates would vary depending on the content of their resumes. However, a common pattern across all interviews was a strong emphasis on Java-related questions.

🔹 Questions Asked:

🖥️ API & Networking

1️⃣ What do you mean by RESTful APIs?
2️⃣ What are the HTTP verbs and their corresponding status codes?
3️⃣ What is idempotency in API requests? Can you give examples?
4️⃣ What is gRPC, and how does it differ from HTTP requests?
5️⃣ Why is gRPC faster than traditional HTTP requests?
6️⃣ What are WebSockets, and how do they work?

🗄️ Databases

7️⃣ SQL vs NoSQL – When should one choose SQL over NoSQL and vice versa?
8️⃣ Explain the order of execution in an SQL SELECT query.
9️⃣ How would you find the student with the second-highest marks without using OFFSET?

🏗️ System Design & Architecture

🔟 What are microservices, and how do they differ from monolithic architecture?

🔤 Java & OOP Concepts

1️⃣1️⃣ What is the String Constant Pool in Java? How does string equality work concerning memory allocation (Heap vs SCP)?
1️⃣2️⃣ Explain Inheritance, Abstract Base Class, and Interfaces in Java.
1️⃣3️⃣ What is Java Reflection, and how is it used?
1️⃣4️⃣ Explain different types of loops in Java with examples.

🖼️ Project-Specific Questions

1️⃣5️⃣ A question related to image processing based on a project in my resume.

Cloud Computing

1️⃣6️⃣ What are some of the Cloud providers you know?
1️⃣7️⃣ Name and explain some services you find on AWS

🎯 3rd Round - HR Interview

📌 After the technical round, we had the HR round.
⏳ Duration: 30 minutes

🔹 Discussion Topics

1️⃣ Self-Introduction & Interview Reflection

Asked to give a formal introduction about myself.
Brief discussion about my interview experience so far.

2️⃣ Teamwork & Leadership

Discussed my group project and how we formed the team.
Ethical dilemma question:

"Did any team member deserve more credit due to their unique contribution, or do you believe all members should be treated equally, regardless of contribution?"
Follow-up:

"If your team won an award for this project, what would you say in your acceptance speech?"
Purpose: To assess whether I prioritize individual contributions or team equality.

3️⃣ Time & Deadline Management

How do you manage deadlines and handle time-sensitive tasks?
Scenario:

"A teammate is not contributing, and the deadline is near. How would you handle this?"
Follow-up:

"How would you prevent such situations from happening in the first place?"

4️⃣ Problem-Solving & Proactiveness

Scenario:

"Suppose you get selected for the internship, but your team and manager are not giving you tasks. You only have a few months to gain knowledge. What would you do?"
Follow-up:

"If you want to contribute to fixing an issue but don’t know where to start, and your manager and team are too busy to help, what would you do?"

🏆 Key Takeaways

✔️ Resume-Driven Questions – Most questions (except Java-related ones) were based on the keywords in my resume, meaning other candidates had different sets of questions based on their resumes.

✔️ Strong Focus on Java – A common pattern across all interviews was the emphasis on Java-related concepts, especially String Constant Pool, OOP, Inheritance, and Reflections.

✔️ System Design & API Knowledge Matters – Having a good grasp of RESTful APIs, gRPC, WebSockets, microservices, and SQL vs NoSQL is crucial.

✔️ Know Your Projects Well – Questions about my resume project were specific and required deep understanding, not just surface-level explanations.

✔️ The HR round was more than just behavioral—it tested my teamwork, leadership, problem-solving, and proactive approach in a professional setting.

✔️ Being independent, managing deadlines, and handling team dynamics were key focus areas.

After successfully completing all rounds, I was selected as an SDE Intern at Barclays! 🚀

This journey has been an incredible learning experience, and I’m thrilled to be a part of Barclays!