Barclays interview process (2026)

Round-by-round breakdown of the Barclays software engineering interview across 3 levels and 13 rounds: interview mode, sample questions, and worked solutions.

Barclays salary & ratings · All interview processes

Graduate Analyst (BA3) — Campus

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: ~2-4 weeks (campus drive) · Recommended prep: 6-8 weeks

  1. Round 0: Online Assessment (HackerEarth)

    Assessment · ~90 min · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Online assessment

    Sample question: Given a string S of lowercase letters, build a new string where the character at 1-based position i is shifted forward in the alphabet by i (wrapping z back to a). Print the generated string. Example: "abcz" -> "bdfd".

  2. Round 1: Technical Interview — DSA + CS fundamentals

    Onsite · ~45-60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Given a sentence, return the longest word in it (first one if there is a tie). Follow-up: do it in a single pass without splitting the string into an array first.

  3. Round 2: Techno-HR round with a VP

    Onsite · ~45-50 min · difficulty 2/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

  4. Round 3: HR + RISES values discussion

    Behavioral · ~20-30 min · difficulty 1/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

Software Engineer (BA4) — Lateral

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: ~3-5 weeks · Recommended prep: 4-6 weeks · Cooldown: ~6 months

  1. Round 0: Recruiter screen

    Phone · ~20 min

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

  2. Round 1: Technical Round 1 — Core Java + DSA

    Onsite · ~60 min · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Given a string, find the length of the longest substring without repeating characters. Example: "abcabcbb" -> 3 ("abc"). Explain the sliding-window invariant before coding.

  3. Round 2: Technical Round 2 — Spring Boot + service design

    Onsite · ~60 min · difficulty 3/5

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Design the classes and REST API for a simple funds-transfer service: idempotent transfer endpoint, balance check, audit trail. Walk through what happens if the debit succeeds and the credit fails.

  4. Round 3: Hiring manager round (VP)

    Behavioral · ~45 min · difficulty 2/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

  5. Round 4: HR + fitment discussion

    Other · ~30 min

    Mode of interview: Interview format varies by team

AVP — Software Engineering

Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: ~2-4 weeks · Recommended prep: 4-6 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months

  1. Round 0: Recruiter + hiring team screen

    Phone · ~30 min · difficulty 1/5

    Mode of interview: Remote phone or video interview

  2. Round 1: Technical deep dive with AVP panel

    Onsite · ~60 min · difficulty 4/5 · elimination round

    Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview

    Sample question: Your service's p99 latency doubled after a JVM upgrade with no code change. Walk through how you would diagnose it — GC logs, safepoints, JIT warmup — and what evidence would distinguish each cause.

  3. Round 2: System design round

    System_design · ~60 min · difficulty 4/5

    Mode of interview: Live system design interview

    Sample question: Design a UPI-style instant payment flow for a bank: validation, debit/credit legs across two banks, timeout and reversal handling, and an audit trail that a regulator can replay. Where do you place idempotency keys and why?

  4. Round 3: VP hiring manager + Director — values & mindset

    Behavioral · ~45-60 min · difficulty 2/5

    Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview

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Worked sample solutions (code, design diagrams, and STAR answers) for every round are available in the FAANGPlus app: open interview processes.