There was one phone interview with a Bloomberg engineer.

The onsite interview started with a so-called tour of Bloomberg but abruptly ended with a museum of their colorful terminals. It was over in 5 minutes. The group of interviewees laughed a little when it ended.

There were 2 rounds of technical interviews with a break of approximately 20 minutes. I found it easy. The mix included algorithm and design questions. All interviewers seemed satisfied when they left me.

The HR and recruiter seemed to forget that I existed, forgetting to contact me for the next 40 minutes or so. I went to their front desk to inquire whether there were more rounds.

The HR appeared slightly irritated but was polite. For the next 30 minutes, HR tried to understand why, after 6+ years of computer science education and working for a couple of years, I "chose" to be a software engineer. They did not want to hear technical details. They had a hard time believing I could fit the role. I wondered whether I should have taken Psychology and then become a recruiter so I could judge potential candidates of a different discipline.

At the end of the interview, I was asked to "patiently" wait for the next round. Within 5 minutes, one more guy turned up and said the conference room was booked. I was once again asked to go to the front desk. Bloomberg's office is huge, and not all elevators go to the front desk. :-( I reached it somehow.

Once again, I tried telling the front desk people that I had an interview. I gave the name of the host. The host appeared after 15 minutes and asked how the interviews were going.

I said, "Not that great." They asked, "Do you want to stay?" I lowered my head and said, "Yes."

In the conference room, I realized that the manager was out of the office and did not have my resume. They arranged a video conference and asked the manager over conference not to keep him "busy" since he had a flight in flat 2.5 hours.

The manager tried to understand how I ended up interviewing at Bloomberg and what role they could give me if I was chosen. It was nice but nothing productive. The interview ended in 30 minutes.

I met the so-called organizer of the whole process. They asked whether the interview was awesome. I said it was "ok." They went on a tirade about how people like me have a low attitude and should be happy to meet awesome people, considering the process took only a day.

They kept repeating, "Hope you get it. Hope you get it" with a smirk while I collected my luggage and thanked them for all the arrangements.

I left brokenhearted and looked tearfully at Lexington Tower while I rushed to the airport.

1. Deep copy a linked list with a random pointer.

2. Perimeter of the wall enclosed by an enemy. Eg: 121 121 If the enemy is labeled 2 in the above matrix, the wall size is 6.

3. Design a circle class and then on utilities on top of it, including randomly generating a point within a circle. How do you translate to polar coordinates and what changes would you make? What changes would be required for a square, rectangle, ellipse, etc.?