I met with Bloomberg representatives at a career fair and handed them my resume.

A few hours later, I received a call to schedule an on-campus interview two weeks out.

I went into the on-campus interview expecting a standard one-hour session, which I anticipated would conclude around 4 PM, as it started at 3 PM.

However, I ended up having four rounds of interviews, each lasting approximately 45 minutes. The first interview was with two software developers, the second with one software developer, the third with HR, and the fourth with a senior programming manager.

Each interview focused heavily on data structures and Object-Oriented Programming (OOP).

I finally left around 7 PM, making the total interview duration four hours. I believe they tend to keep candidates longer if they are impressed, or they conclude the process after the first interview.

Interview Questions:

In the first two interviews, the questions concentrated on data structures and string manipulations. There were also several trick questions involving pointers and references.

The third interview was a standard HR screening, focusing on questions like "Why Bloomberg?" and "What do you dislike about Bloomberg?"

The fourth interview was the most challenging. The interviewer mentioned that only one person had reached that stage before me (given I arrived at 3 PM, at least eight people had interviewed, with only one progressing). The questions were very difficult. The interviewer presented code examples and asked me to identify subtle errors and then optimize the code, with a focus on OOP principles. The final question involved solving a specific company problem, which I am not permitted to disclose.

Overall, I had a positive experience. I hope to interview with them again in the future.

The final interviewer gave me a page-long example of C code and told me to find one subtle error and optimize the code. I had no idea it had to do with OOP.