Barclays

The recruitment process consisted of an Online Assessment followed by two technical interview rounds. The OA was conducted on HackerEarth and had 20 MCQs and 5 SQL questions. The MCQs mainly covered basic Java, C++, SQL and logical/output-based questions, while the SQL section tested basic SQL syntax with limited use of joins. The round was 45 minutes and was mainly a test of speed and accuracy. In Interview Round 1, the interviewer first asked me to introduce myself and then went through my resume. I was asked about my projects, their feasibility, whether they were individual or group projects, and some basic HR questions. I was then asked to explain one of my projects in detail and was cross-questioned on its features and implementation. I was also asked to write some code from memory based on my project. After this, questions were asked on Java and C++, including differences between NULL, 0, and undefined, pointers and pointer-related exceptions, C++ string code outputs, and time and space complexity. The interviewer also asked about DBMS joins. I explained them using Venn diagrams and was finally given two tables on paper to perform a FULL OUTER JOIN and provide the resulting output. In Interview Round 2, the interviewer focused mainly on my AIML projects. I was asked to explain a project in detail and then questioned about the dataset, its features, how I cleaned the data, which features were important, how I selected those features, which model performed better, and how I evaluated and concluded that one model was better than another. The interviewer repeatedly cross-questioned my answers and went deeper into different aspects of the project. The discussion was therefore strongly based on the projects mentioned in my resume rather than only theoretical questions. Overall, the interviews were heavily resume-driven, with a strong focus on programming fundamentals, SQL/DBMS, and the ability to explain and defend the technical decisions made in projects.