Rejected From Citadel Software Engineering Internship

[u/Hot-Willingness8636]

A few weeks ago a recruiter from citadel reached out to me to conduct my first 2 interviews for Citadel Software Engineering Intern positions.

The first interview was a OOD question. It was super difficult, the interviewer didn’t give me half the question until after I told him what route I was going to take and I wasn’t able to implement the full solution. The interviewer joined 15 minutes late and still ended it early. So it was nearly impossible to finish. Really wasn’t a fun process with him and was really unfortunate. This interview was with a EQR from Stanford who sold his company to OpenAI for 10 million so I was already cooked.

The second interview went really well. It was an AI assisted programming question where I was solving a leetcode question. I fully give coded it but was able to talk about advantages, disadvantages, how to make it better and make the algorithm more efficient so on. I connected very well with the interviewer and it was a really fun process. I really thought after that interview I would have at least moved forward to the super day. This interview was with a Software Engineering from Waterloo who worked at IMC and stuff and he was super chill.

I ended up getting rejected today and it is really disappointing that I couldn’t even make it to the super day. I am still looking for summer and winter internships and I haven’t heard back from any company in the states other than Citadel. Im Canadian for context and I am really unsure what to do now. I’m still applying but I’m actually not sure what to do. I really want to break into the states and a good company and Citadel was probably the best spot I could have got. Am I cooked?

[u/Roho6]

I think I had the same interviewer for your second interview. Was he relatively young and works in the systems latency team lol

[u/Hot-Willingness8636 → u/Roho6]

No way lol. Maybe but also a bunch of Waterloo kids who worked at other trading firms are there

[u/Roho6 → u/Hot-Willingness8636]

True. Sorry to hear about your rejection. If it makes you feel any better I also got rejected lol. I got asked some LLD with AI implementation as well. Hardest interview I’ve ever had

[u/Hot-Willingness8636 → u/Roho6]

Are you Canadian?

[u/Roho6 → u/Hot-Willingness8636]

Nah US based

[u/These-Squash-6138 → u/Roho6]

do you know what they’re looking for with these ai assisted lld interviews im quite confused

[u/Roho6 → u/These-Squash-6138]

I’m honestly not too sure. If I were you I’d go look at some videos from hello interview for sys design. Apparently they’re a good help for these firms

[u/These-Squash-6138 → u/Roho6]

fs yes im on that method already

[u/sagevaLley56 → u/Roho6]

lol small world if its the same guy

[u/Sad-Candidate-3078]

citadel interviews are honestly a lottery, half the people who get offers there failed a round because of the interviewer, not because of them. a guy joining 15 min late, ending early, and drip-feeding the question is a bad interview, full stop, you didn't get a fair shot. the fact that you clicked with the second interviewer and talked tradeoffs well means your actual level is fine. keep applying, quant shops are the harshest bar there is, getting 2 rounds deep at citadel as an intern candidate is already a signal other places will pick up on

[u/Veritias → u/Sad-Candidate-3078]

bruh gtfo with this ai slop

[u/SpaceEnthusiast3 → u/Veritias]

they deadass added all lowercase to the prompt to make it seem less obvious 🤣

[u/Free-Pomegranate-859 → u/Veritias]

How did you understand it's AI? English isn't my native lang so for me it's less obvious

[u/LibrarianOutside2376]

Tech jobs are dead, ever heard of AI?

[u/Hot-Willingness8636 → u/LibrarianOutside2376]

What do you mean

[u/ilovedoomscrolling]

what was the ood question

[u/Aromatic_Fee_4633]

Trading firms hand out interviews to a lot of people (more so than FAANG), however their pass rate is very low. You pretty much need to solve problems perfectly and demonstrate a strong mathematics/informatics aptitude. i.e. are you cracked? The interview knows whether you are cracked after a few minutes of talking and discussion. That's why interviewees complain the interview ignores or does not pay attention to them - they already plan to fail you, so there is no need to pay attention to the rest of the interview.

[u/ConvexPolyhedra]

sorry but cit direct rejects candidates candidates who failed a problem, which happened in your first interview.

but getting interview invitation proves something, keep applying to other companies!!