Barclays Software Engineer candidates report an online assessment followed by two to three interview stages. Preparation commonly centers on resume projects, coding fundamentals, Java or databases, and behavioral examples.
$153K
Avg. Base Comp
$200K
Avg. Total Comp
2-3 rounds
Typical Rounds
2-4 weeks
Process Length
Barclays Software Engineer candidates describe online assessments and live interviews, although the exact format varies. Reports include coding with multiple-choice questions or behavioral and personality-style questions. One candidate completed an onsite with separate behavioral and technical interviews, while others described two live rounds mixing technical, behavioral, or leadership content. Prepare for a detailed explanation of your own project decisions, because resume-based follow-ups recur across the accounts.
Technical emphasis is broad rather than uniform. Reported material includes Two Sum using a hash map, arrays and linked lists, dynamic programming, SQL and database fundamentals, OOP, and Java topics such as collections, threading, queues, and Spring annotations. Candidates also encountered questions about JVM memory, microservices, C and C++, and the time and space complexity of a solution. Prioritize the technologies and design choices actually represented in your experience rather than assuming every interview uses the same stack.
Behavioral discussion is also recurring. Candidates mention conflict resolution, leadership, teamwork, risks, challenges, career goals, and explaining a difficult concept to a teammate. Build concise STAR stories that establish the situation, your specific actions, and the result. Practice explaining solutions aloud as well as writing them, since the reports emphasize fundamentals, projects, and practical reasoning. End-to-end timing is not consistently reported in the available accounts.
Synthesized from 10 candidate reports by our editorial team.
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Real interview reports from people who went through the Barclays process.
The onsite interview leaned heavily toward JavaScript fundamentals and practical frontend concepts. I was asked about closures, debounce and throttle, web accessibility, and system design, with a hands-on prompt to implement debounce and throttle and explain when each should be used. They also asked managerial questions and discussed my past experience. The technical conversation felt approachable but broad: I needed to explain core concepts clearly rather than just write code.
The overall process was described as an online assessment followed by technical and HR rounds. The assessment covered aptitude, programming, and coding questions. In the technical round, expect discussion of data structures and algorithms, core CS and programming concepts, and a detailed walkthrough of a resume project—your role, technologies, challenges, and how you solved them. The HR portion focused on communication, teamwork, motivation for joining Barclays, and fit. One question that stood out was how I saw AI helping with coding.
I was initially told I had been selected, but about two weeks later I received an email saying I was not selected. My main takeaway is to be ready to implement and justify practical utilities such as debounce and throttle, while also being able to walk through your project decisions and prior experience in detail.
Prep tip from this candidate
For a JavaScript-oriented interview, practice implementing debounce and throttle from scratch and explaining their real usage. Also prepare a detailed resume-project walkthrough covering your role, technologies, challenges, and solutions.
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Sourced from candidate reports and verified by our team.
Topics based on recent interview experiences.
Featured question at Barclays
Select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department
| Question | |
|---|---|
| Find the Missing Number | |
| Bagging vs Boosting | |
| Attribution Rules | |
| Sort Strings | |
| CNNs vs Intensity-Based Features | |
| Priority Queue Using Linked List | |
| Prime Numbers Identification | |
| String Palindromes | |
| Blob Indexing | |
| Impossibly Iterative Fibonacci | |
| Safe Deployments | |
| Why Do You Want to Work With Us | |
| Justify a Neural Network | |
| Your Strengths and Weaknesses | |
| Dropbox Database | |
| Employee Salaries | |
| Merge Sorted Lists | |
| Subscription Overlap | |
| Closest SAT Scores | |
| Empty Neighborhoods | |
| Top Three Salaries | |
| Monthly Customer Report | |
| Rolling Bank Transactions | |
| String Shift | |
| Comments Histogram | |
| Prime to N | |
| Top 5 Turnover Risk | |
| Like Tracker | |
| Find the First Non-Repeating Character in a String |
Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
Candidates report an assessment before live interviews. Formats varied: one described MCQs plus coding, another reported a string problem with SQL and OOP, and another saw aptitude-style material. Practice clear solutions to approachable coding prompts and revisit the relevant fundamentals.
Candidates commonly report technical conversations built around past projects and experience. Be ready to explain implementation choices, algorithms, trade-offs, technologies, challenges, and how you approached a problem; reported topics also include data structures, SQL, databases, Java, and OOP.
Candidates report behavioral questions either alongside technical content or in a separate culture-focused conversation. Prepare concrete examples about leadership, conflict resolution, teamwork, initiative, risks, challenges, and explaining a difficult concept to a teammate.
