I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Barclays (London, England) in Jul 2009
Interview
1st stage phone interview:
general c++ questions from all possible areas: constness, inheritance, smart pointers, templates, STL, multithreading etc.
Example: What is 'mutable'? Give an example where you used it.
2nd stage inhouse interview:
Four tasks - I had to write code on paper. The last one was to write tree-related algorithm.
Overall it wasn't difficult, but I failed because I did a few stupid mistakes in a basic questions. So my recommendation would be: review basic concepts and not only advanced.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Unexpected: Give an example where you used 'mutable'.
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Overall, the process felt outdated, disconnected from how software is actually written, and more reflective of academic memorisation than professional engineering competence.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.
