J'ai postulé via un recruteur. Le processus a pris 4 semaines. J'ai passé un entretien chez Barclays
Entretien
The hiring process included the typical online-assessment work (numerical/verbal reasoning) which as always seems somewhat straightforward. About a week after hearing I had passed this phase, I was invited to interview. The interview was split into two halves lasting about 45 minutes' each, the first was competency-focused and asked the usual "think of a time" style questions. The latter half of the interview lasted a further 45 minutes and involved reading through code and talking about what it did, what problems if any existed with it and how it could be proved. As the code chosen was from an older system, there were plenty of talking points.
The interviewers were personable and friendly, clearly comfortable discussing the job and the role and encouraged answering any questions about Barclays itself - they were very much open to questions about the future work available as far as was possible to discuss. Overall, a good experience.
Questions d'entretien [1]
Question 1
There wasn't really a difficult or unexpected question during this interview - the most unexpected part of the intervieww was the unknown code, but you'd expect to be looking at new code when you start so this is not an unrealistic demand in interview.
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Overall, the process felt outdated, disconnected from how software is actually written, and more reflective of academic memorisation than professional engineering competence.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
J'ai passé un entretien chez Barclays (München, Bavaria)
Entretien
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.