Barclays interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview
SDE - 1
Barclays
2 rounds | 4 Coding
problems
Selected Interview preparation journey
Journey
I completed my Engineering in Computer Science Engineering from IIT. Right from the first year, I started learning Java and DSA from GeeksofGeeks. I emphasised more on Competitive coding and used to participate in a lot of coding tests. I was pretty confident on my skills.
Application story
I got a message in my telegram group about the company visiting our campus to hire SDE-Intern. As, It was the peak season for the internships, it was sure that I was going to apply for it. I started preparing accordingly for it.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I was selected because I had prepared very well for the interviews. I was able to answer all questions efficiently. Interviewer was very impressed by my method of approaching solutions.
Preparation
Duration: 2 months
Topics: Data structures and Algorithms, Machine learning , Object-Oriented Programming System, Competitive Programming, Operating systems.
Explain your approach to the interviewer properly by giving examples as it will be more clear to the interviewer. Also, practice lot of graph-based questions as it is the most important interview topic. You can refer to Geeks For Geeks or Coding Ninjas as these were preferred by me mostly while preparing for interviews.
Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: 7 CGPA
Add only those skills which you are pretty confident and also try to make resume of one page only.
Interview rounds
01
Round
Easy
Online Coding Test
Duration120 minutes
Interview date10 Nov 2020
Coding problem3
This round was coding + MCQ’s round.MCQ’s were easy and coding questions were of medium level.
1. MCQ’s(Total -38)
10 were of aptitude, 5 from Data Structures and Algorithms, 3 from time complexity, 10 from Maths ( statistics, probability) , 10 from Database management system & Operating System.
Problem approach
- All the questions were very simple, just a little bit of concentration was required as problem statements were large but logic was easy.
2. Is it a tree?
Moderate
20m average time
75% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Given a graph with N nodes, numbered from 1 to N and M edges. Determine if it is a tree ?
Problem approach
- Just use the cycle detection algorithm of the graph , detect the cycle in the given graph and if there is a cycle then that graph is not a tree else it is. Also make sure graph is connected.
3. Coin change
Moderate
20m average time
80% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Given a value N, if we want to make change for N cents, and we have infinite supply of each of S = { S1, S2, .. , Sm} valued coins, how many ways can we make the change? The order of coins doesn’t matter.
Problem approach
- First I thought of the recursion approach but the complexity of that approach was exponential and that solution was not passing any test case, then I thought of DP approach and use the concept of include and exclude current coin to find total number of ways and that passed all test cases. This was just submitted one minute before the deadline of the test.
02
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration120 minutes
Interview date2 Dec 2020
Coding problem1
This was face to face round and the interviewer asked me to tell approach first and then write code for that and after completing the code he also made me dry run the code on his given test cases.
1. Distinct Island
Moderate
25m average time
80% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Given a boolean 2D matrix. The task is to find the number of distinct islands where a group of connected 1s (horizontally or vertically) forms an island. Two islands are considered to be distinct if and only if one island is identical to another (not rotated or reflected).
Problem approach
- Firstly I told the interviewer, the Depth-first search approach. I ran Depth-first search on each element of the matrix which is un-visited while traversing the matrix and for each island, I assigned a particular code for that island and store in the map . Now all the components having same code are not distinct so I removed the duplicates elements from the map and return the size of the map. I wrote a proper commented code after telling him approach. Then the interviewer gave me some test cases on which I dry run the code and explained him well. He was very much satisfied with my approach as that was unique solution and I thought that during the interview itself.
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Skill covered: Programming
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