How I cracked J.P. Morgan Chase through code for good and you can too!

I was offered a full time software engineering role from jp morgan chase and co on july 20 2022.

The hackathon was conducted on june 4th and 5th of 2022. But before this hackathon, we had to pass 2 rounds of tests in order to appear for the hackathon.

Round1: Hackerrank coding round

There would be a coding round with 2 questions. The test was somewhere in mid-february. The questions were fairly easy ie 1 leetcode easy (based on strings) and 1 leetcode medium (based on hashmaps). Since the questions were easy and I had solved around 450 problems on leetcode, i was able to solve it in 7 minutes. Many of friends solved both the questions but didnt receive the next round link because they took a lot of time in solving. Hence speed matters when the competition is high. Use python if needed since it requires least time to code with.

Round2: HireVue Video interview round

This was an autoamted video answering round. They would ask 2 hr type questions and you had 2 chance to record an answer to that. I was asked:

Q1) mention your career goals .

Q2) describe a real life learning experience.

I answered both of them. I spoke about how i wanted to progress through my career ie from a dev to managerial position for question1 and for question2 i spoke about how i contacted google developers to ask about GRPC issue on github.

I have heard that wearing a formal dress , keeping your self tidy and speaking with confidence matters. Many people were dropped after this round. So prepare well.

Round3: The actual hackathon.

Please be good in web development or mobile development. AI/ML is an additional boon.

The mentors constantly monitor how you come up to with the architecture, database design, APIs and how you communicate and lead the team. So pay utmost attention to the mentors and their requirement. This is where the final round of interview happens.

I did my internship in web-dev and used Nodejs. So during the hackathon I could come up with nice backend APIS and also did frontend even though it was not my expertise. So the mentors were impressed.

Even though our team didnt win, since I did a lot of work and helped out my team, I was able to secure the offer.

Hence please dont waste a single minute during the hackathon. Interact with your mentors and teammates. Try to come outside your comfort zone and show them what you are capable of.

Note that this is one of the few companies where you will be assessed by your development skills rather than competitive coding skills as a fresher. If you are into development, like me, its a dream opportunity.

You can sleep later, but during the 24 hr hackathon, dont try sleeping. Show them your work ethic, your grit and your determination.

If you guys want to know the compensation,comment it. Will make a video or post on it.

Till then, ATB!