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Bloomberg L.P. Financial Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews
Getting the Interview 32 Interviews
Interview Experience 31 Ratings
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Accepted Offer – Interviewed in Los Angeles, CA Jan 2013 – Reviewed Mar 31, 2013
Interview Details –
I submitted my resume on campus and got a call next day. I had an HR round on phone in which they tested my personality and then flew me off to New York.
In new york they took a 1:1 technical interview.Questions started from easy to difficult.
After that there was a round with the Hiring manager who offere me the salary package which i accepted.
Interview Question – Explain the Hidden Markov Model? View Answer
Negotiation Details – There was simple salary offer which i accepted.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
No Offer – Interviewed in Los Angeles, CA Jan 2013 – Reviewed Mar 28, 2013
Interview Details –
1) Met the Bloomberg reps at career fair, handed resume
2) Got a call a few hours later to schedule an on campus interview two weeks later
3) Went into the on campus interview expecting a standard 1 hour session. (Started at 3 PM, expected to end at 4)
4) Had 4 rounds of interviews, each about a 45 minutes long. First interview was with two software devs, second interview was with 1 software dev, third interview was with a HR, and fourth interview was with a senior programming manager.
Each interview focused heavily on data structures and OOP.
I ended up leaving at around 7 PM, so the interview was four hours long. I think they generally try to keep you for longer if they like you, or they kick you out after the first interview.
Interview Question:
In the first two interviews, the questions were heavily focused on data structures and string manipulations. There was also a lot of pointer/reference trick questions.
The third interview was a HR interview, so very standard HR questions. I.E. Why Bloomberg? What don't you like a Bloomberg?
The fourth interview was the hardest. When I had went in, he said that only one person had made it so far before me. (I came at 3 PM, so atleast 8 people have come and only one made it) The interview questions were very difficult. The interviewer gave me examples of codes and told me to find the most subtle errors and then to optimize the code. It had to do with OOP. The final question he asked me was how I would solve a specific problem in the company. (Not allowed to say)
Overall, I had a good time! Hope to interview with them again in the future.
Interview Question – The final interviewer gave me a page long example of C code and told me to find one subtle error and optimize the code... Had no idea. It had to with OOP. Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
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No
Problem with this interview?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
No Offer – Reviewed Mar 23, 2013
Interview Details –
phone interview: 45 mins
You have a string which stores a number with commas. For example, a string that has the number 345,000,000. How will you manipulate this string in-place [without using any extra memory] so that the output is the original string without any commas in O(n) ?
Interview Question – worst case to find a specific number in 0-99. View Answer
Helpful Interview?
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No
Problem with this interview?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
No Offer – Interviewed in Feb 2013 – Reviewed Mar 20, 2013
Interview Details – University recruiting - Got interview call at career fair.
Interview Question –
1) Create Binary Search tree
2) Fibonnaci Series
Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
No Offer – Interviewed in Oct 2012 – Reviewed Feb 11, 2013
Interview Details – Sent out resume through career fair. Contacted by a recruiter to schedule an on-campus interview two weeks later. Had a one to two interview. Asked two questions: 1. database design 2. implement atoi() function in which programming language you are comfortable with. The interviewers are very nice. But I didn't get further interview opportunity.
Interview Question – 1. database design 2. atoi() Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
No Offer – Reviewed Feb 9, 2013
Interview Details – submit the resume, was contacted after 2 weeks to schedule a phone interview.
Interview Question – the difference between public, private and protected Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
No Offer – Interviewed in New York, NY Dec 2012 – Reviewed Jan 17, 2013
Interview Details –
-applied online for non-cs background track and got 1 round phone interview for about 1hr with an engineer.
- did not get any IQ or written test ...
-got basic questions about C/C++ , algorithms and brain teasers
Interview Question – Nothing to bad, just need to know your basics well. View Answers (2)
Helpful Interview?
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No
Problem with this interview?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
Accepted Offer – Reviewed Jan 15, 2013
Interview Details –
One phone interview followed by the on-site interview.
The phone interview covered a wide variety of questions. I feel like the interviewer asks whatever popping up in his head. To name a few: write a simple sql statement, what is the purpose of database index and how does it work, how does garbage collection work, compare Java garbage collection and Python garbage collection, inter-process communication, and so on. No coding.
During the on-site interview, I met 2 developers, one manager and one hr. The two developers mainly asked coding questions. Nothing too difficult, but they test to see if you can write code. I wrote 4 pieces of code in a 45 minute interview. The manager asks open-ended design questions.
Interview Question – None. The open-ended design question needs a lot of discussion with the interviewer. Answer Question
Negotiation Details – I am still considering
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
No Offer – Interviewed in New York, NY Mar 2012 – Reviewed Mar 21, 2012
Interview Details – 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
- Why Bloomberg? How did you hear about us? Answer Question
- What challenges do you foresee working as a technical support representative over the phone? Answer Question
- What is your current compensation at your current position? Answer Question
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
Financial Software Engineer at Bloomberg L.P.
No Offer – Interviewed in New York, NY Nov 2011 – Reviewed Nov 25, 2011
Interview Details –
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 Question – When did you give up on a career in science? View Answer
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Problem with this interview?
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