Banking and financial services · campus hiring · verified October 2026
Morgan Stanley Technology Analyst interview: process, rounds and questions
Morgan Stanley’s Technology Analyst campus hiring in India, as candidates at IIT Delhi and elsewhere describe it, is an online assessment of aptitude, code debugging and two or three coding problems, followed by two technical interviews — the first on live DSA, SQL, operating systems, networking and object orientation, the second on projects and situational problem-solving — and an HR conversation that in some drives is folded into the second interview; one campus added a timed group task. The firm’s own site reduces the route to "explore, apply, interview" and name a technology analyst programme for STEM graduates without giving its rounds or criteria. Sources checked October 2026.
Independent guide. Mentari is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley is a trademark of its owner. Hiring processes change — verify on the official careers page.
Typical Morgan Stanley interview questions — with the follow-up
Written by Mentari as typical of this process — not a record of questions Morgan Stanley has asked. Each comes with the follow-up a good interviewer asks next and what they listen for in the answer. Scenario details are our framing, chosen to fit Morgan Stanley’s sector.
Find the longest substring with at most two distinct characters. Brute force first, then better.
Follow-up · What is the invariant your sliding window maintains, and what breaks it?
Listens for · Names the naive approach honestly; the window invariant articulated, not just coded.
Write a query that returns each trader’s largest trade this month and how it compares to their average.
Follow-up · Now drop traders with under five trades. Where does that condition live?
Listens for · Window or grouped aggregates used deliberately; HAVING versus WHERE understood.
In C, what happens to this pointer after the function returns? Walk me through the stack.
Follow-up · Now the same code in Java. What is different and why?
Listens for · Memory model explained correctly across two languages.
At a glance
| Tracks | Technology Analyst (full-time, campus) · Summer Analyst / technology internship |
| Rounds | 4 (3 interview, 1 assessment) |
| Who | Final-year engineering students; a technology analyst programme for STEM backgrounds is named on the India careers page |
| Basis | Official page + 8 candidate reports (2024–2026) |
Reported pattern: the rounds
Compiled from 8 candidate reports (2024–2026) and the official hiring page. Where reports differ, the range is shown rather than one number.
| Round | Applies to | Format | What it tests | Reported length | Based on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Online assessment | Technology Analyst (full-time, campus), Summer Analyst / technology internship | Aptitude (20–30 questions, rated hard by several candidates), code debugging (about seven questions), and two or three coding problems from medium to hard; a 2026 internship pattern gives 17 questions across 90 minutes | Quantitative reasoning, reading and fixing code, DSA on arrays, trees, graphs and hash maps | 90–120 min | Candidates report4,5,6,10 |
| Technical interview 1 | Technology Analyst (full-time, campus), Summer Analyst / technology internship | Video or in person; two live DSA problems, then fundamentals | Strings, lists, stacks, sliding window; DBMS and SQL (nine or ten queries in one account); operating systems, networking, OOP; résumé projects | 45–75 min | Candidates report4,5,6,7 |
| Technical interview 2 (+ HR in some drives) | Technology Analyst (full-time, campus), Summer Analyst / technology internship | Project walkthroughs and real-world design — an e-commerce cart with queues, graphs and trees in one account — plus teamwork and situational questions; HR folded in or run separately | Project ownership, data-structure selection for a real system, explaining a concept through a system they have seen, the reason for wanting this firm | 30–60 min | Candidates report4,5,6,7 |
| HR / group task | Technology Analyst (full-time, campus) | A standalone HR round in the IIT Delhi account; one campus ran a timed group construction task followed by an explanation of design choices | Communication, teamwork, performance under time pressure, knowledge of the firm and its values | 15–30 min | Candidates report4,7,6 |
Eligibility and the assessment
| Criterion | Reported value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Cut-offs | None published; fixed by each campus notice and the assessment invite. "Analyst" covers several tracks — Technology Analyst, Summer Analyst, roles on the business side — with different tests — set per campus; your placement notice is authoritative | Candidates report5,11 |
| Programme | A technology analyst programme for students and graduates from STEM backgrounds is named on the India careers page | Official2 |
Online assessment — reported patterns — Three configurations are reported: 30 aptitude questions in 45 minutes plus coding (campus Technology Analyst); 20–30 aptitude, 7 debugging and 3 coding questions (April 2025); and, for a 2026 internship drive, 17 questions across 90 minutes — 7 aptitude MCQs, 8 DSA fill-in-the-blanks and 2 coding problems, with no negative marking. Aptitude is repeatedly rated the hardest part.7,5,10
| Section | Questions | Minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Quantitative aptitude | 7–30 | 20–45 |
| Code debugging | 0–7 | — |
| DSA fill-in-the-blanks (2026 internship pattern) | 0–8 | — |
| Coding problems | 2–3 | — |
How to prepare for the Morgan Stanley Technology Analyst interview
- Practise hard quantitative aptitude under time — permutations and combinations, series, percentages, unit conversions. Aptitude is the section candidates rate hardest, across three drives.
- Do code-reading drills: find the bug, complete the missing line. Debugging and DSA fill-in-the-blank questions are reported in the assessment.
- Write ten SQL queries in a sitting, including joins, grouping and a ranking query, and explain each. One interview was mostly SQL; DBMS recurs across accounts.
- Revise OS, networking, OOP and C memory basics to the point of an example from a real system for each. Interviewers wanted each concept tied to something real.
- Design a small system — a cart, a queue — aloud, choosing data structures and saying why. A real-world design question appears in the second interview in reported drives.
- Prepare a "why Morgan Stanley" answer that names a technology the firm runs in India. Motivation for the firm is reported as a scored part of the final interview.
What the interview looks for
What Morgan Stanley says it assesses
- Three-step route — "explore, apply, interview" — with interview tips offered to help candidates "excel during your interview"1
- A technology analyst programme for STEM students and graduates in India; "our people are our greatest asset"2
What candidates report being probed on
- Live DSA — sliding window, stacks, strings, trees — with the brute force first and optimisation on request4,6,7
- SQL in volume (nine or ten queries in one interview) and DBMS fundamentals8,6
- C memory and recursion, call by value versus reference, operating systems and networking basics8,5
- Designing a small real system — a shopping cart — and choosing data structures for it7
- Natural, unscripted communication and the ability to pin a concept to a system they have seen5,6
What is different about Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley’s campus assessment is the one in these guides that candidates most often call hard for its aptitude section rather than its coding. Reports from three drives rate the quantitative part tough and the coding medium to hard, and the 2026 internship pattern adds DSA fill-in-the-blank questions — reading and completing code rather than writing it from scratch. A student who has practised only LeetCode arrives prepared for the easiest third of the test.
The interviews are then unusually broad for a technology role. One summer-analyst account describes an hour-long interview that was mostly SQL — nine or ten queries — with C memory questions alongside; another describes a cart-design conversation that moved through queues, graphs and trees; the IIT Delhi account describes two technical rounds and a standalone HR round; and one campus added a timed group-building task scored on explanation of design choices. Candidates who did well attribute it to being able to explain reasoning naturally and to give a "why Morgan Stanley" answer with a concrete reason in it.
Where the sources disagree
The official pages give nothing to reconcile — explore, apply, interview — so the pattern rests on the candidates, who agree on sequence and disagree on the test. The IIT Delhi drive (October 2024), the April 2025 Technology Analyst account and the March 2025 summer-analyst account all describe an assessment, two technical interviews and an HR element; the older campus account adds a group task, and the off-campus 2024 account compresses it to one long technical interview and HR. The assessment is reported as 30 aptitude questions in 45 minutes plus coding, as 20–30 aptitude plus 7 debugging plus 3 coding, and — for a 2026 internship drive — as 17 questions across 90 minutes with DSA fill-in-the-blanks. The 2022 AmbitionBox account describes a 90-minute test with a different mix, which shows the format has changed before and will again. Nothing official states a cut-off.
More typical questions, by round
Explain a deadlock using something you have actually seen or built.
Follow-up · Which of the four conditions would you break in that example, and what would it cost?
Listens for · A real example and a trade-off, not a recited list.
Design the data structures for a shopping cart: ordered items, removal by name, instant total.
Follow-up · Quantities can now change. What updates?
Listens for · Structures chosen from requirements; a design with one place to change.
Walk me through your main project as if I will have to maintain it next week.
Follow-up · What would you have to warn me about?
Listens for · Owns the code and admits the rough edges.
A nightly batch that feeds a trading report failed at 3 a.m. You find out at 8. What do you do in the next hour?
Follow-up · The fix would take two hours and the report is due at 9. What do you tell the desk?
Listens for · Prioritises communication and a partial result over heroics.
Why Morgan Stanley, and why engineering inside a bank instead of at a product firm?
Follow-up · Name one system you think the firm runs in India and what would be hard about it.
Listens for · A specific reason and a plausible technical guess — the "natural, not scripted" quality candidates report being rewarded.
You have four minutes and these pieces: build the tallest stable tower with your group, then explain your design.
Follow-up · What did you personally decide, and what did you defer to someone else?
Listens for · Visible teamwork and an honest account of their own role — the group task reported at one campus.
A worked example
Design the data structures for a shopping cart that must show items in the order added, allow removal by name, and compute the total instantly.
Weak · "I would use an array of items and loop through it to remove by name and to compute the total."
Stronger · "Ordered insertion suggests a list, removal by name suggests a hash map, and an instant total suggests a running sum. So: a doubly linked list for order, a map from name to node for O(1) removal, and a total updated on every add and remove. The trade is memory for two structures — fine for a cart, which is small."
Why the follow-up lands · The follow-up is "quantities can now change — what updates?" The strong design has one place to change; the weak one has a loop to rewrite.
Illustrative — yours must be true.
Practise for your Morgan Stanley interview — first one free.
A 20- or 40-minute mock, by voice or text, planned from your résumé and the job description, for the company you name. Every score on the report is tied to a quote from your answers.
Start freeIndependent guide. Mentari is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley is a trademark of its owner. Hiring processes change — verify on the official careers page.
Your college may already provide Mentari seats — ask your placement cell, or send them this page.
For placement cells
A Morgan Stanley technology drive is a hard aptitude-plus-debugging-plus-coding assessment, two technical interviews and HR, sometimes with a group task. The company publishes no pattern or cut-off. The cohort lever is timed aptitude and code-reading practice, which eliminates more students than the coding does.
Mentari’s software-engineer mock covers the two interviews — fundamentals with examples, a project interrogated down to its design choices, and the "why this firm" question — for the students who clear the test. Run Morgan Stanley-pattern mocks for a whole batch.
Related
Sources
- Students and graduates — Morgan Stanley (official) · official · accessed 2026-10-23 · explore, apply, interview
- Morgan Stanley India careers — Morgan Stanley (official) · official · accessed 2026-10-23 · names a technology analyst programme for STEM backgrounds
- Tech career development at Morgan Stanley India — Morgan Stanley (official) · official · accessed 2026-10-23
- Morgan Stanley interview experience — on-campus, IIT Delhi (Technology Analyst) — CodelessGenie · candidate report, 2024-10 · accessed 2026-10-23 · assessment → two technical interviews → HR
- Morgan Stanley Analyst interview experience (Technology Analyst, 2025) — lets-code.co.in · candidate report, 2025-04 · accessed 2026-10-23 · 20–30 aptitude, 7 debugging, 3 coding; HR call; technical; final HR-plus-technical
- Summer Analyst intern interview account, March 2025 — GeeksforGeeks · candidate report, 2025-03 · accessed 2026-10-23
- Morgan Stanley interview set 12 — on-campus, Technology Analyst — GeeksforGeeks · candidate report, 2025-07 · accessed 2026-10-23 · GfG page last updated July 2025, drive undated; 30 aptitude in 45 min; group task
- Summer Analyst off-campus account, 2024 — GeeksforGeeks · candidate report, 2024-02 · accessed 2026-10-23 · older account: hour-long SQL-heavy technical interview; cited for topics
- Summer internship on-campus account — GeeksforGeeks · candidate report, 2025-02 · accessed 2026-10-23
- Morgan Stanley internship campus drive — pattern (May 2026) — FACE Prep · candidate report, 2026-05 · accessed 2026-10-23 · preparation-site compilation; 17 questions across 90 minutes
- Morgan Stanley recruitment process — GeeksforGeeks · candidate report · accessed 2026-10-23 · compilation
Verified October 2026 by Sumit Mishra, Mentari founder. Spotted an error, or represent Morgan Stanley? Write to [email protected] — we acknowledge within two working days and correct or remove a disputed statement within 72 hours.
Mentari is not affiliated with Morgan Stanley. This page is pattern-based, compiled from the public sources listed, and is not insider information. Candidate-reported details are reproduced as patterns only, in our own words.
Last updated · Written by the Mentari team