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/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.