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Summary
I successfully secured a Technology Summer Intern offer at Barclays after a virtual interview process consisting of an online assessment and two interview rounds, which evaluated my project work, technical knowledge across OS, OOP, C++, DSA, and behavioral skills.
Full Experience
Online Assessment (2 hours)
The online assessment was divided into two parts. Part 1 featured a fictitious business narrative followed by a series of MCQs based on given situations. Part 2 included 5 technical comprehension-based questions (20 minutes), 8 behavioral video questions (2.5 minutes each), and a programming question: to print all combinations of a given length from given characters. I was also required to explain and record the explanation of my code within 2 minutes.
Interview Round-I (Business Insights) (45 minutes)
This round began with the interviewer asking me about the projects mentioned in my resume. Following this, we engaged in a Q&A session centered on a real-world situation, where the questions were strictly from a technical perspective and focused on how my projects could be beneficial in that context.
Interview Round-II (Technical) (1 hour)
This round covered a broad range of technical topics:
- OS: Questions included 'What is an OS?', its functions, and specifics about Scheduling, Memory Management, and File Management.
- OOPs: I was asked about Inheritance with real-life examples and Exception Handling.
- C++: Topics covered Libraries in C++, advantages of using C++ over other languages, STL in C++, Primitive data types, and examples.
- DSA: I discussed the differences between DFS and BFS, their implementations, and real-life examples. I also covered the differences between LinkedList, array, queue, and stack, along with their time complexities for insertion, search, and deletion. Lastly, I was asked about various searching algorithms and why binary search is preferred over ternary search.
- DS related real-life questions:
- I was presented with a scenario involving a long list of characters where insertion needed to be constant time, and the entire list/word needed to be accessible without a loop. The hint suggested considering a string, accessible via
cin, even for large sizes. - Another problem involved maintaining a list of student names and marks, constantly sorted by marks. The hint guided towards using a vector of pairs, sorted using a comparator function.
- I was presented with a scenario involving a long list of characters where insertion needed to be constant time, and the entire list/word needed to be accessible without a loop. The hint suggested considering a string, accessible via
- Behavioral: I discussed my strengths, weaknesses, and my understanding of Barclays principles.
Finally, I received an internship offer from Barclays!
Interview Questions (10)
Given a set of characters, print all possible combinations of a specified length from these characters.
Explain what an Operating System is, its core functions. Detail concepts like Scheduling, Memory management, and File management.
Discuss Inheritance with real-life examples and explain Exception handling.
Discuss libraries in C++, the advantages of C++ over other languages, STL in C++, and primitive data types with examples.
Explain the differences between Depth-First Search (DFS) and Breadth-First Search (BFS), discuss their implementations, and provide real-life examples of their use.
Explain the differences between LinkedList, array, queue, and stack. Discuss their time complexities for insertion, search, and deletion operations.
Discuss known searching algorithms and explain why binary search is generally preferred over ternary search.
Given a long list of characters, describe a data structure where insertion takes constant time, and the entire list/word can be accessed without explicit loops (e.g., using cin for input, considering large sizes). (Hint: consider std::string).
Given names and marks of students, describe a method to maintain this list consistently sorted with respect to the students' marks.
Discuss your strengths and weaknesses. Also, demonstrate your understanding and alignment with Barclays' principles.
Preparation Tips
I attribute my success in securing the internship offer at Barclays significantly to the extensive preparation I did using LeetCode, which proved to be an invaluable resource.