I've been on a deep research kick about Citadel for new grad SWE roles, talked to a bunch of people who went through the process recently, and want to write up what I've found because the prep advice out there is really scattered.
The pipeline: Campus recruiting (or online app) -> OA -> recruiter phone screen -> final round interviews (2-3 technical, 1 behavioral/culture). For new grads targeting the SWE track, not the quant track.
OA: I described this in another thread but: two LC-hard coding problems plus short-answer questions. 90 minutes. HackerRank. Don't sleep on the short answers.
Final round technical: Two coding interviews plus a system design or technical discussion depending on your background. The coding problems are LeetCode hard range. For new grads, the system design is lighter, more "how would you build X" thinking-out-loud than a full senior-level distributed systems exercise. But you still need to engage with it seriously.
What moves the needle for new grads according to people who got offers: Real projects. Not tutorial projects. Something you built that had to handle a real constraint (scale, correctness, latency, reliability). Have one or two of these ready to go deep on. Strong fundamentals. Data structures, algorithms, OS basics. Not exotic stuff, core stuff done cold. Enthusiasm for the financial domain that's genuine. They can tell when you've force-fit "I've always been interested in finance" at the end of your story.
Comp for new grad SWE NYC 2026: I've seen numbers around $180-220k TC for the class of 2025/2026 depending on the group and offer timing. Some quant-adjacent tracks pay higher.
What I wish I knew earlier: Start the OA prep at least 4-6 weeks out. The bar is genuinely higher than most other firms at the new grad level.