Citi

I applied for Citi's investment banking position through the off-campus route. After the initial application screening, I received an online assessment. The test had a combination of technical questions and coding, so I had to switch between CS fundamentals and problem-solving rather than focusing only on DSA. Reported Citi SDE intern processes have similarly included an OA followed by technical interviews covering DSA, DBMS, OOP, OS and CN. The coding questions were not extremely difficult, but the time constraint made them more important. I focused on getting the basic cases correct first and then optimized where possible. After submitting the assessment, I was shortlisted for the interview stage. The first interview started with a quick introduction and then moved directly to my resume. The interviewer spent quite a bit of time asking about my projects. Instead of just asking what I had built, they wanted to know why I had selected particular technologies and how individual components worked internally. After that, we moved into technical questions. I was asked about DBMS concepts, SQL and OOP. Some questions were fairly straightforward, but there were follow-ups whenever I gave an answer. For example, instead of stopping after a definition, the interviewer would ask where I would actually use a particular concept in a project. This made the discussion feel more practical than a normal theory-based interview. Recent Citi interview reports also mention DBMS, OS, OOP, logical puzzles and project-focused questioning. There was also a DSA discussion. I was given a problem and first asked to explain the straightforward solution before discussing its complexity and possible optimization. The interviewer changed one of the conditions afterward, so I had to adjust my approach rather than simply reproduce the original solution. The final part was more behavioral. I was asked why I wanted to work at Citi, how I handle situations where a project does not go according to plan, and about some decisions I had made while building my projects. Citi's reported technology internship interviews have included situational questions alongside technical and project discussions. I felt the interviews went reasonably well overall, although I wasn't completely satisfied with a few of my answers in the technical discussion. After the interview process, I received the final update and was rejected. The biggest takeaway for me was that preparing only DSA would not have been enough for this process. I needed to be equally comfortable explaining my projects, defending technical decisions, and answering core CS questions without relying on memorized definitions.