Current Status
Position : SDE - 2 at FAANGM+
Location : Remote in India
Years of Experience : 5
Current TC : 45 LPA
Applied Position : Senior Software Engineer
Location : London
Date : Last week March 2022
Applied online on Bloomberg's careers page in mid February. Recruiter reached back within a day and asked to schedule an introductory call.
Round 1 : Introductory Phone Call with Recruiter
- Asked questions about why I want to join Bloomberg, why am I leaving my current role, what do I do in my current job
- Discussed a project of mine in brief overview.
- No technical questions were asked in this round.
After this, recruiter came back within 2 days and said 2 teams were interested in speaking to me. Scheduled phone screen for 1 week later.
Round 2 : Phone Screen
- Asked one question. One of the top 10 ones from LC Bloomberg tagged top 50 questions.
- Was asked to explain my logic and then code. Interview was very interactive and discussed how I'd make changes to code based on scale.
- Asked to calculate time and space complexity after writing code. Code was not run on any IDE.
Recruiter mailed back within a day that they wanted to move to onsite rounds. Scheduled onsite after 2 weeks.
There were 6 onsite rounds in total. All the technical ones were scheduled on one day and the behavioral ones were scheduled for the next day. They informed me if the review from the technical rounds wasn't good enough, they'll cancel the behavioral rounds and it's a reject.
Round 3 : Onsite Technical - 1
- Asked a simple DFS on a grid based graph question and told to calculate time and space complexity. It was about a car travelling on a grid between two points.
- This was then expanded to include obstacles on the grid and how I would calculate the distance between two points now.
- After this, there was another follow up - Gas stations are added on path now which will help increase distance car can travel. Calculate if a car can move between two points now.
- The focus was on keeping initial solution extensible for all these problems.
- Another follow up was asked in the end which I don't remember. Wasn't asked to code this, just asked how would I approach it.
Round 4 : Onsite Technical - 2
- A system design question based on what the team does. I was shown the existing architecture of one of the things the team does and asked how I would improve this or what would I do differently.
- This was a healthy discussion which focused on me asking questions about how and what the team does before diving into my solution.
- Since they've already coded a solution to this problem, it's not like a bs question where companies ask you to design instagram or twitter. If you try to pull some crap on them, they'll see through you pretty quickly.
- Can't elaborate further on this since that would give away the team.
30 mins after the 2nd technical round, I was informed they want to move ahead with the behavioral rounds the next day. There were 3 behavioral rounds. 1 each with the team leads of the two teams which wanted to speak with me and 1 with an engineering manager.
Round 5 : Behavioral with Team Lead - 1
- Focused a lot on my current experience. They dove deep into what I do in my current role, why I want to join Bloomberg, why am I leaving my current role.
- Was asked to explain one of my projects in complete depth.
- Discussed how my team works on a day to day basis and my role within the team.
- Asked a few behavioral questions. If you've prepared for behavioral questions at Amazon, you'll coast through this.
- I asked a few questions about what the team does and what would my role be if I joined.
Round 6 : Behavioral with Team Lead - 2
- Same as above round. No major differences.
Round 7 : Engineering Manager
- This was more of a discussion. EM explained more in detail what the team does.
- I asked some questions about the project they're working on currently which impressed him.
- There was some more discussion about my current responsibilities. Not as detailed as the round with team lead but it was a fun experience.
Round 8 : Recruiter
- This was also just a discussion with the recruiter. Was asked the same questions about why Bloomberg and why I want to leave my current role.
- Recruiter asked about how my experience during the interviews was and if there were any issues with any interviewer that I wanted to highlight.
- Recruiter explained the further process and how long they'll take to reach back if they wanted to make an offer.
Was told within 48 hours that they want to make an offer. Received offer details 24 hours after that. Their offer was already better than I expected so I didn't negotiate.
Tips :
- Go through the top 50 Bloomberg tagged questions on LC and through the last 6 months of problems in the LC discussion of Bloomberg. Questions are either repeated or similar. Get LC premium. It's worth it.
- Recruiters are really helpful. They'll guide you properly. Use their help.
- Interviewers are extremely interactive. Keep talking through the process and maintain proper communication. If they give you any hints, use them. They want to know you'll be a good team mate.
- Prepare a very good answer for Why Bloomberg? Don't give a generic answer. Go through the company's values, that helps.
Offer Details : https://leetcode.com/discuss/compensation/2133956/Bloomberg-or-Senior-Software-Engineer-or-London
Good luck to all!. Happy to answer questions in the comments. You can read through my other experiences below.