Bloomberg L.P. Senior Software Developer Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – Applied online. After ~3 weeks received request for phone screen. Phone screen lasted ~1hr and was all trivia on C language, with questions on keywords, and analyzing a few lines of code. Interviewer did not show any emotion or give any indications of whether or not they were satisfied with a given answer. Asked some Unix questions and trivia on threads, parallel processing. Ended with some open ended questions on data structures, like 'are you familiar with any data structures?' I mentioned linear structures (array, LL, etc), hash tables, and trees to give a couple examples. Asked questions like 'what is notable about XX data structure,' 'what is important when hashing keys', 'how are trees balanced.' I had a lot of questions and the interviewer said 'I can give you about 2 minutes.' He sounded like a robot, so I asked if he enjoyed the job and he said it's fast paced and you will roll out features often.

Interview Details – The first step was a phone interview with a pair of developers. Without any background or introduction, the interview proceeded for ~40 minute on technical questions on C++/Linux.

The second round was onsite with 4 different sessions: 2 technical, 1 HR, and 1 the senior manager. The technical interviews were with a pair of developers/team leads and some code was expected to be written on a provided pad of paper.

Reason for Declining – Salary was not as competitive.

Interview Details – I talked to Bloomberg recruiters at a career fair at my school, and they suggested a position for me to apply online. They were at my school looking for undergrads, and I'm a soon-to-be PhD.

I applied online. Response was quick... a little too quick. I was in the airport, and they immediately sent a link to a timed online screening. I had to ask for postponement which they kindly granted.

The screening was simple. Two tests, each around 45 minutes long, multiple choice, with various questions about the details of C and C++ syntax and semantics.

A week later, the first phone interview. A week after that, second phone interview. Two weeks after that, fly in for two days of in-house interviews.

Interviews featured questions primarily on C++ semantics, C++ STL (Bloomberg publishes their own implementation on GitHub), networking, and concurrency. There were a couple of brain teasers.

Interviewers were nice, dressed primarily in polos or untucked shirts and jeans (I felt overdressed in a suit). Interviews on the first day lasted from 10am to around 4pm with no breaks, and I met mostly project leaders. Interviews on the second day were from 2pm to 5pm, with senior management and HR at the end.

Interview Details – The process was time-consuming and long. Two phone interviews full of technical questions (specific programming assignments to do and read over the phone, plus puzzles and general questions). Two on-line language exams (not too difficult but time consuming). Two multi-person on-site interview sessions, one with more programming tests and puzzles, another with more general experience and industry questions.

Followed up by a third-party background check.

Negotiation Details – By the end of the process, be ready with your acceptable terms and numbers, and stick to your guns. The negotiation was very straight-forward after the long and often opaque interview process.

Interview Details – Applied online, went through phone + 1:1 interview.
Phone interview questions
. Mostly C++ knowledge based, copy constructors, virtual functions, STL, templates, dyn amic memory allocation.
. One puzzle
1:1 interview
. How would you go about designing facebooks suggest a friend feature
. How would you store a large list of name, zipcode and customer names.

Interview Details – I was told that it will be a phone interview. I got the call 40 minutes after the scheduled time, that too after i contacted HR that i am waiting. The interviewer talked to me only for 10 minutes. After a week, i got negative response from HR.

Interview Details – It started off with my education background: described my graduate work in past years and what languages that are used frequently. Since the position is mainly C++ developer, so they asked me simple C++ questions. The questions are not hard, but the interviewer's side were pretty noisy and they seemed a bit impatient during the process. Sometimes we didnt hear well and I started panic and rush for the answers without detail checks.

Interview Details – Had a telephonic interview first by 2 people who asked all C++ basics. Asked to design a simple object oriented hierarchy using any real world example. Then had a face-to-face. Met with 4 people one after the other. Got lot of questions on data structures using trees and their algorithms. Failed this one.

Interview Details – Got an interview arranged through a recruiter for a very good team inside of Bloomberg. Got an email saying it will take 1 hr minimum, but to allow up to 3 hours. My recruiter explained that there are 3 stages, if you get past each stage, you get the next person coming. I was interviewed by a person I will be working with, then the head of the team, then the HR -- all in the same day. You just need to be good at computers and know what you are doing and you should be fine -- they need smart people and they know when they see one. Got everything from C/C++ questions, logic questions and more. The HR person then just came to sell the company to me. I loved the interview processes, the people and I love the culture, office and all the rest the job had to offer. Got a final interview via telephone from their head office arrange (which took about 3-4 days), which had the same type of question and I had the offer the next day. It was a no-brainer for me to accept it.

Negotiation Details – I didn't negotiate, they specified a salary range for this position and I just nodded. I had 3 other offers on the table from other banks and hedge funds. I looked at the future opportunities and the people more than anything.