I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Morgan Stanley (Budapest)
Interview
After I succeed the HR and the technical phone interviews I got invited to Assessment Center at MS headquarters in Budapest. The first part was a group exercise, me and the other candidates had to decide which technical solution would we choose in order solve one specific problem. In this part the most important thing was to cooperate with the others, and also make a decision as fast as possible. No technical expertise was required in that part.
The second part was an HR interview, they mostly asked questions they already had asked during the phone interview.
The last part was a technical interview, and this was the most difficult. As I'm just finishing my first course in java, I could not answer most of these questions, as they were very deep and specific.
Although the interview was tough, the whole process was very well organised, and also the interviewers were super-friendly and they helped me a lot. The best work interview experience in my life!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why String class is specific in Java?
Compare threads behavior in single processor-multiple core and multiple processor-single core systems?
Compare StringBuffer and StringReader!
And one tricky logical exercise.
I applied online. I interviewed at Morgan Stanley (Glasgow, Scotland)
Interview
3 total rounds
1. 30m phone screen where I was asked about my experience and some basic Java-related questions.
2. 1h technical interview where I was asked more Java-related questions and had to implement a sorting algorithm by hand.
3. Final 4h interview where multiple interviewers that spanned system architecture, coding/algorithms, and behavioural questions.
After all that process, the recruiter never bothered to get back to me. I followed-up after a week and was informed that they're still making final decisions. No answer after that.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Explain the architecture of a system that you currently work with
I applied online. I interviewed at Morgan Stanley (Budapest) in Feb 2026
Interview
Very enjoyable interview, the interviewers tried to dig deep in my skills, they weren't just passive listeners. Gave me an example of what it is like to work in this specific team.
It was for the role Software Engineer - Java Developer. Hr reached out to discuss about the role. There were 2 rounds of technical interview.
Each round will consist of 1 hour interview.And then followed by an hr round.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Mainly focused on dsa and java
Asked to sort list of employees based on its id using java8.
Given an array and target, find the indices from the array whose sum is equals to the target. The solution should be in O(n)
Java Developer applicants have rated the interview process at Morgan Stanley with 3.2 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 50% positive. To compare, the company-average is 62% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Java Developer roles take an average of 18 days to get hired, when considering 20 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Morgan Stanley overall takes an average of 27 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Morgan Stanley as a Java Developer according to 20 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 34%
One on one interview: 26%
Skills test: 17%
Group panel interview: 9%
Background check: 6%
Presentation: 6%
Drug test: 3%
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