Status: Currently pursuing Bachelor's from top 50 < CS school < top 100
Position: New Grad SWE @ Bloomberg
Location: New York City, NY
Date ~ February 23, 2021

Technical phone screen (60 min) - Round 1 (Late Feb’21)

Behavioural aspect of the interview:

• Interviewer introduction (5 mins)
  • introduced himself and what team they work on.
• I was asked to introduce myself (2 mins)
• Tell me about your Software Engineering experience? (7-10 mins)
  • Talked about the projects I had completed in the past/I’m most proud of
  • I’m also majoring in finance so we talked about finance related projects as well
  • We went back and forth about technical details, challenges, outcomes etc
• What do I want to do in the future? (2-3 mins)

Technical aspect of the interview:

• Some variation of Remove all adjacent duplicates in a string (finished around 51 min mark)
• The remainder of the interview was allocated for me to ask questions (9+ mins, I believe we went over the allocated time limit)

Interview update:

• Passed - was informed within 5 business days
• Round 2 (Virtual Onsite) → 2 technical video interview (60 min each)

Virtual Onsite (3 hours) - (1st April)

Round 1 - Technical Video (60 mins)

Behavioural aspect of the interview:

• Interviewer introduction (3 mins)
  • introduced themselves (2 interviewers) and the teams they worked on
• I was asked to introduce myself (12 mins)
  • Follow-up questions
    • 2 follow-up question each focusing on different internship experience
• Ask questions (at the end of the interview 5 min)

Technical aspect of the interview:

• Q1: Variation of number of islands (completed around 30 min mark)
  • follow-up question - how will I solve the problem if we have a 3D grid
• Q2: Design a lottery system (haven’t seen on LC)
  • follow up questions → Optimize it further

(15 min break)

Round 2 - Technical Video (60 mins)

Behavioural aspect of the interview:

• Interviewer introduction (3 mins)
  • introduced themselves (2 interviewers) and the teams they worked on
• I was asked to introduce myself (2 mins)
• Why Bloomberg? (2 mins)
• Ask questions (at the end of the interview 5 min)

Technical aspect of the interview:

• Q1: Similar to Collatz Conjecture (haven’t seen on LC before)
  • somewhat close to sort integers by the power of two

Starting from 1, generate a sequence - which denotes the operations used to reach the target
	* multiple by 2
	* floor division by 3

Example 1:
# target = 1
# output: ""
# explanation: 1 (target) = 1, no operations needed

Example 2:
# target = 2 
# output: "*"
# explanation: 2 (target) = 1 * 2 

Example 3:
# target = 8 
# output: "***"
# explanation: 8 (target) = 1 * 2 * 2 * 2 

Example 4:
# target = 10 
# output: "****/*"
# explanation: 10 (target) = 1 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 // 3 * 2

Example 5:
# target = 3 
# output: "****/*/"
# explanation: 3 (target) = 1 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 // 3 * 2 // 3

• follow-up question - what if we call the method multiple times?
  • code a solution for expanded scope
• follow-up question - code optimization for the expanded scope
• follow-up question - optimize it further

Interview update:

• ✅ Passed - was informed right after my 2nd interview to stay back as someone from the HR department would like to speak with me
• For Bloomberg if you’re NOT asked to stay back at the end of your 2nd interview that is generally a bad indication → suggesting that you were unable to pass the technical screen

Round 3 (HR round, 30 min)

• Work authorization
• Salary expectation
• Location Preference
• Other companies you’re interviewing with/have an offer from
• Preference for teams (fullstack, backend etc)
• Why did you choose Computer Science as your major? and what do you like about it?
• Explain a project that you’ve worked on in the past.
• What is your expectation from the role?
• Why Bloomberg?
• I was allowed to ask questions (13 mins)

Interview update:

• ✅ Passed - was told that my recruiter is going to work with me to find a time for a conversation with a senior manager.
  • Will be asked questions about technical concepts
  • May involve coding (but not to the level of technical screen)
  • Questions about my past projects
  • Information about different teams etc
  • Will get an opportunity to ask questions
  • Round 4 (Hiring Manager round, 30-45 mins)

My advice on how to succeed @ Bloomberg virtual onsite

• Go through Bloomberg tagged questions
• ask your interviewer how many questions you’re going to be asked
  • will help you manage your time accordingly
• Even though the questions might be similar to what you’ve seen on LC be prepared to struggle with the follow-up questions
• While practicing leetcode make sure you try to stretch your comfort level by exploring different ways to get to an optimal solution