Hello all!

I recently interviewed at Bloomberg as a new grad SWE and want to tell you all about the process to help you all out.

Some stats before I start:

• top 10 CS school
• worked at AWS and IBM
• Heavy experience in modern C++
• Getting a business degree as well as a CS degree

I applied online without a refferal.

STAGE 1:
After a week or so, I was invited to a 10 minute coffee chat and an engineer asked me about my experience and I got to as her about Bloomberg. No real technical questions, just questions about my experience.

STAGE 2:
Bloomberg visted my campus and invited me to a round 1 interview. The inteview was 1 hour long and in person (so I actually had to draw code and shit). The question wasn't anything too bad (LC Medium) and there were two questions (I was asked to actually code only the second one)

After this, the interviewer asked me to wait outside and came back to me and asked me to come back on wednesday for round 2.

For round 2, it was only one interviewer this time and he asked me a really hard question (I forgot what it was, but all I remember is that it was really hard). I managed to work twords the correct solution and started to walk through my code and the interviewer told me "your code is correct, no need to do this", which was a good sign. After that we chatted about bloomberg and he told me I'd go on to the HR and Manager round. In his own words he told me "don't fuck up"

STAGE 3:

The Manager and HR round are the last stages in the process. I was told by my round 1 interviewer that if you get to this stage you'll basically get the offer. I went into this prepping system design but was suprised when all I had to do was talk about my experience and why I want to join bloomberg. The HR round was more or less the same thing, but more behavioral.

I interviewed last Monday and recieved and email last Friday that my recruiter would call me to talk about an update to my application. I was given a verbal offer on Monday.

Offer: Can't remember how much it was for but it was a lot, I'll update it when I get the offer in hand.

TIPS:

• Bloomberg really values communication. Please be sure to talk about everything you are doing and ask questions. For example, I asked my interviewer if it would be appropriate to return a std::optional<uint32_t> instead of an int to indicate if we can process a request or now or to throw an exception. Asking these questions shows you are smart, so please do it!
• Get a really good answer for why bloomberg. A lot of people fumble on this and just say "money" or smth stupid like that. For me, I talked about their commitment to the CPP standard and their philanthropy (things I really care about and could genuinly convey to the interviewer).
• Be personable. Seriously. Do try to make connections to the interviewer and smile. The interviewers were really casual and in my final round the manager and I bonded over our distaste of amazon.
• If you have extra time after your interview, stay and ask questions.

Prep:

• Do the top 50 bloomberg tagged questions. I didn't get any of the questions listed there but they follow a pattern (mostly class design). I wasn't asked anything too crazy but expect something in the range of medium -> medium hard.

Overall the experience was really good! The engineers and team are really good at conveying where you are in the process (they don't ghost and will reject you within a day if you don't meet their bar). Everyone I met was really friendly and excited about my experiences and I truely felt welcome there. If you're considering interviewing at Bloomberg, I can't recommend it more.

goodluck everyone and lmk if you have any questions :)