I applied for this position online, which is a six-month placement scheme. I was then called for a phone interview. I must note that the questions asked will be directly related to what you have put on your CV. I listed proficiency in C++ and being a beginner in Java, and this is where the phone interview focused.

The phone interview was mostly technical. Nothing too difficult, just basic conceptual stuff like:

• Differences between references and pointers
• Dangers of pointers
• How to initialize references in a class
• Multiple inheritance in C++
• Basic OOP concepts like encapsulation and abstraction
• Differences between new and malloc

Basically, if you have coded sufficiently in C++, the interview will be a no-brainer.

Then, I was offered an in-house interview.

The in-house interview took place at their corporate HQ in London. There were three rounds of interviews:

• Junior developers
• A more senior developer
• A recruiting team person

The junior developers tested me on code related to determining the type and values of some C variables. These variables were a mix of pointer arithmetic, character arrays, and accessing arrays via index and by pointer arithmetic. They then asked me a simple algorithm for calculating the maximum consecutive recurring string of characters in a given string. Nothing too difficult. They also asked some of the repeated questions from the phone interview.

The interview with the senior developer was slightly more difficult. He started by asking how I would calculate the square root of a number.

The final interview was with the recruiting officer, who asked standard questions like why I want to work at Bloomberg, what I see myself doing in a few years, and questions on motivation, work ethic, and leadership.

I received a call with the offer within 48 hours.

How to calculate the square root of a number?