I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at FIS
Interview
Fis Global in Munich is a former Siemens subsidiary that develops and maintains a core banking system based on Cobol from the 1980s (Kordoba). According to Wikipedia, the system is no longer actively marketed.
In order for this system to meet today's requirements, a Java shell was created around the core system. Kordoba is still used by many medium-sized and small banks in DACH area.
The system has nothing to do with the Fis Global core banking system for the American market (MBP). MBP is a cloud-capable new development.
Development and bug-fixing is done in India but managed from Munich. In this area, I applied as a software architect.
The decisive (3rd) interview was held in English. After some quite simple questions about Java and patterns, I was given code (in the scenario of the Indian team) to evaluate. In retrospect, the task here was to explain Java beginner's mistakes (like the wrong use of 'static') to the colleagues in India.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Unfortunately, the code was in a desolate state and without unit tests, and the time to complete the task was extremely tight (15 minutes). Also, the task was not clear, the code was uncommented and it was not easy to guess what were simplifications for the test and what were real errors. I did not manage to get the code running in my IDE in time as there was no build system and the code depended on 2 external libraries.
I therefore proposed to restructure all the code using a subscribe pattern. This was not the desired response.
I looked at the code once more after the interview. I'm now convinced that it has elementary concurrency problems. In my opinion, my interview partners are not aware of this fact.
