I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Barclays (San Francisco, CA) in Sept 2008
Interview
Three interview sections, in one interview.
1. Java section, standard scjp questions, design questions
2. sql section - lots of sql (pointer, transaction, join, db types)
3. sql design section - know the 1,2,3 normal forms
4. fuzzy-wuzzy section. Standard "when did you do something that was wrong" or "how did you work with people you didn't like" - always be super-specific, not "i would do this" but real instances (or vividly made up ones).
You really need to know sql - they ask about general concepts, some tough programming questions (not, "insert this into a table") - also know about optimisation techniques
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
how would you optimise your sql query? what tools would you use?
it was very positive and supportive, they asked questions about basic java + spring technologies and two rounds of technical interview with sensible task not like leet code stuff. they asked to filter brackets inside string
Asked me to come for face to face interview.
When I went saw 100 to 150 people for the interview.
Got number for interview in the evening 6 PM. When asked they said only 2 pannel is available to take interview. If you have not enough people to take interview then why you wasting candidates time.
Good, interviewer was friendly and not overly stress inducing, which I have found to be common in the finance industry particularly around development orientated roles. Not overly difficult either. Did not ask me about leetcode.
