Bloomberg L.P. Financial Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews
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Updated May 1, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 23 ratings 
“Difficult” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 23 ratings
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| 1–10 of 23 Bloomberg L.P. Interviews | Sort by |
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Posted May 1, 2012
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Apr 2012 in London, England (United Kingdom) (took 3 weeks)
questions in C about data types, analyse bit manipulation functions, and write a function that handled strings.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Skills Test and a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Posted Apr 12, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Feb 2012 (took a day)
Talked with recruiter at Career Fair, looked at resume and asked a couple of questions regarding my resume and some technical questions. Told me I would get a call if they wanted to schedule an interview. Got a call later that day to schedule an interview for the end of the week.
Went to the interview on campus, took about 20-30 minutes with two interviewers. Was asked logic questions. The interviewers left the room and came back and told me they wanted to run me through a second round on interviews. Went through second round of interviews, with two different interviewers, and they also gave logic questions that were more difficult than the first.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Posted Apr 2, 2012
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Mar 2012 (took a day)
Received online test requirement. The time limit is 3 days. The problem is not hard, all you need is a compiler. It's all basic knowledge. The language is depended on which you applied for previously. My test is about C. During the test, you could save and quit several times. And for each question you have 3 minutes to finish it. So, use your compiler and Google. You could finish it well.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Posted Mar 21, 2012
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Mar 2012 in New York, NY (took a day)
Was asked to attend an in-house interview the next day. Third round, in-house interview with two R&D specialists. Asked why the role and what I would like to do. Then several C++ and algorithm questions. I did poorly on one of these questions.. Later they also asked things relevant to my major(not a CS major) which I answered pretty well. At the end of the interview, I was asked to stay in the room. Thought the I passed and was expecting for the next rounds. Yet the recruiting contact person showed up and lead me out of the building.... Thought I did well on most of the questions though.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Posted Nov 25, 2011 — 3 of 3 people found this helpful
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Nov 2011 in New York, NY (took 5+ weeks)
Submitted resumé and cover letter online and got an e-mail a week later asking to take an online assessment. The online assessment focused mostly on clerical skills, spatial reasoning, logic questions, simple math questions, and one or two questions involving algorithm flow charts.
After taking the online assessment, I received an e-mail a week later asking for a phone interview. The phone interviewer was very cordial and patient, and asked a lot about why I wanted to work in finance, why Bloomberg, and quizzed me on my programming experience. Specifically, she wanted to know what languages I used, examples of projects I worked on, the size of the codebases I worked on, what operating systems I've used, and my knowledge of data structures. The interview ended with a math problem-solving exercise.
Four days after the interview, I received an e-mail inviting me to an on-site interview. The Bloomberg main office building is very, very impressive, with stellar facilities and modernist architecture. Security was pretty tight. After making arrangements at the reception desk, I was invited up to interview, and my host escorted me to a glass office next to what looked like a sales area. Bloomberg screens were everywhere, and the displays all around were quite impressive. Bloomberg has an internal PowerPoint slide-style public address system called Arcade that projected onto one of the walls of the sales area adjacent to my interview room. The Arcade announcements said a lot about the company culture: there were announcements for volunteer events, arts events, fire drills, Bloomberg terminal software features, photos of views outside various Bloomberg offices worldwide, and even a really cool spot about how Bloomberg supports Movember! There was also a free snack bar outside the glass office where I interviewed. I really felt sold on the company, and everyone I talked to up to that point was quite helpful.
The first interview I had during my day-long on-site interview was by a team of three software developers. After some basic behavioral questions on my programming experience, why I learned various languages, and why Bloomberg, I was asked to solve some programming problems. The interviewers were very patient, cheerful, and helpful, and told me that I could answer the questions in pseudocode if I liked. First, I was to talk through the problem and how I would solve it, and then I was to write down a program that solved the problem they posed. After solving the programming problems they asked, I was asked a few other short programming-related questions, and then this team wrapped up their interview.
After a short break, a second team of two software developers interviewed me. This team seemed to be more senior, and asked me questions like, "What does Bloomberg do?", "Why finance?", and "Why Bloomberg?" Then, they asked programming questions related to my background in engineering, and wrapped up with another programming problem.
After they left, I waited a short while again, before a person from HR came in and interviewed me. This portion of the interview focused mostly on my education and job history, and focused intensely on why I was applying to finance positions after getting an education in engineering. The questioning during this portion was probably the toughest part of the interview because the interviewer seemed to want to know how much I wanted to work for Bloomberg. Questions included things like, "When did you decide to give up on a career in science?," which, I think, was trying to gauge how much I'd prefer a career in an area where I did all of my training over a career at Bloomberg. At the end of that portion of the interview, I was told that this round would be the last round, and that I would be notified of a decision the subsequent week (and I was).
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a Group/Panel Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Posted Nov 3, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Sep 2011 in New York, NY (took a day)
I gave them my resume during a career fair at my university. They called a week or two later to schedule an on-campus (not their campus, my university campus) interview. They started with a technical interview with 2 of their engineers, and when I seemingly passed that (after all, I knew the answers to the fairly factual questions that they were asking), they forwarded me to a Project Manager with whom I discussed my experience, etc. He explicitly told me after the interview that he was very impressed, even though I had not prompted him for any kind of evaluation. They told me they'd get back to me that very Friday, but they got back to me the following Monday with a rejection. I really don't understand why they rejected me when everything went so seemingly well, and so I'm a little annoyed. I also thought the tech interview was stupid because they mostly asked know-it-or-you-don't factual questions about C++.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Posted Nov 2, 2011
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 in New York, NY (took 3 days)
The process consisted of three separate interviews on subsequent days with three separate Software Developers and Team Leaders at Bloomberg. It primarily consisted of questions designed to ascertain my programming knowledge and ability to code on the fly. Questions varied from the specific, such as, how would you code a least common multiple algorithm, how would you detect a loop in a linked list. To the more general, such as given a very abstract high level diagram of the Bloomberg Terminal, and asked how you would setup and improve the communication between the Bloomberg and it's Clients. Since I primarily applied with a PhD in statistics, a few questions on financial mathematics were included, such as what is the Black-Scholes model, what are it's weaknesses, what models would you suggest, what do you mean by fat tails? However since it was obvious rather quickly my statistical knowledge was far fresher and more up to date then my coding ability, which had been dormant for around five years, they didn't spend too much time on the Statistics side of the questions. The interview ended with a brief one on one with a person from H:R that asked me some of the standard questions you see on "online interview aids". Like why do you want to work at Bloomberg, and I see you've got extensive teaching experience, do you plan to go into Academia. What other areas are you applying to other then Finance, etc. The bulk of the interview process, thus contained mainly knowledge based questions unrelated to what you find in most interview help books and resources.
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
I was given a very specific offer, which is about fair for what I know of starting level positions with my education and experience level. There was no mention of this being negotiable in any way shape or form, but I'm still deciding whether to accept (most likely yes) and I'll certainly as if the salary is negotiable in any way shape or form, because I don't believe a simple questions can hurt.
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Posted Nov 2, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 (took a day)
I had on campus interview. It is a technical interview. I was asked about my research background, two designed question by C/C++. You should be able to describe your previous work clearly and in some detail. They will raise related questions about data structure or programming from you previous work.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Posted Oct 23, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2011 (took 2 days)
3 technical interviews and 1 HR general question.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Posted Oct 3, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Aug 2011 (took a day)
One and half months after my online application, I got a online IQ test, which was rather difficult. Fortunately I was told that I passed the test and a phone interview would be given. I couldn't move forward because I didn't prepare well enough, also the interviewer's accent was a problem for me.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of an IQ/Intelligence Test and a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
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