Status: SDE 1 at Barclays (1.7 YOE) IIT BG
Position: Analyst Location: Mumbai (onsite 5 days office) Salary Offered/Target: 25 LPA Date: Feb 2026
Overview: The process consisted of 4 rounds in total, moving from basic project discussions to high-pressure ambiguity tests with Executive Directors (EDs).
Round 1: VP Round (Resume & Design)Focus: Deep dive into my work at Barclays (Java 21, Kafka, React).Questions: * Detailed discussion on my specific projects.System Design/Observability: How would you debug a sudden increase in page loading time? (Discussed latency, DB bottlenecks, and network issues).Concurrency: Real-world scenarios around record-level concurrency.DB: Indexing and optimization questions.Behavioral: Why do you want to switch from Barclays?
Round 2 (Associate): DSA (Problem Solving)Question 1: Container With Most Water. Started with and moved to the optimal two-pointer approach.Question 2: Find the second largest number in an array. Variations included handling duplicates vs. non-duplicates. Final expectation was a single-pass solution.
Round 3:ED (Executive Director) Round 1 (Behavioral & Tech)Behavioral: Standard questions (Strengths, Weaknesses, etc.).Tech: Resume-related deep dives and a heavy focus on Kafka (likely due to my work with Kafka optimization at Barclays).
Round 4: ED(Executive Director) Round 2 (Ambiguity & Edge Cases)
This was the "Elimination" round. It started with my Full Stack experience and moved into a high-pressure coding scenario.
Full Stack Discussion: * Why use Redux for state management?
Frontend vs. Backend: Why not store all validations on the frontend?
Architectural choices: Why Spring Boot? Why a specific DB?
The "Ambiguity" Problem: * Task: Parse a date from a string of length 10. The format is unknown (could be yyyy_mm_dd, mm/dd/yyyy, etc.). The separator can be anything.
Requirement: Identify the separator and extract the date components correctly.
My Experience: I solved for the standard valid cases with assumptions. I missed one edge case with more than 2 separator.
Result: Rejected on the basis of not handling that final edge case under pressure.
Key Takeaways for Candidates:
Expect Ambiguity: In senior/analyst rounds at JPMC, they often give problems with 50% missing info. Ask questions before coding. 2. Stress Test: The interviewer might act hurried or confused to see if you stay calm.
Full Stack means Full Stack: Even as a Backend-heavy dev, expect deep questions on React state (Redux) and frontend architecture.
Don't ignore the "Why": Be ready to defend every tool in your stack (e.g., "Why not just use Context API instead of Redux?").
Final Note: Despite being a LeetCode Guardian , sometimes these "Managerial/ED" rounds come down to how you handle a specific edge case they have in mind. Don't let a rejection stop your momentum!
Happy Coding....!!
