I applied on Bloomberg's website directly.

I didn't hear back from them for 2 months. Then I received an email from an HR person asking me to do an IQ/Technical Aptitude test. The online test was C/C++ based, and it was very difficult and very technical. I don't think I got that much right.

But 2 or 3 weeks later, I received another HR email requesting a phone interview.

The phone interview itself lasted about one hour. It was conducted by two technical people. There was about 15 minutes of small talk and background discussion from both the interviewer and myself. Then 15 minutes on the resume (past projects, mistakes made, etc.). Then the last 30 minutes were on technical questions, covering C, C++, algorithms, and coding questions. At the end, they told me HR would get in touch with me regardless of the result.

One week later, HR got in touch and requested an in-person interview. They flew me to New York.

The interview started at 10 am. The HR interview was first (1 interviewer, generic behavioral questions, past experiences), lasting 30 minutes. Then came technical question round 1 (two interviewers, C, C++, puzzle solving, past projects, ending with some information about the work they do at Bloomberg, then Q&A). Technical round 2 (meaning you passed the first stage, otherwise you wouldn't get to round 2 and would be sent home already) involved 1 senior manager, with C, C++ technical questions right away, algorithms, design patterns, and Q&A, lasting 45 minutes to 1 hour. Then there was a second HR interview (mostly chatting, discussing salary expectations, and other topics).

I heard back with an offer the very next day. (I hear from my colleagues that this is not typical; they usually take a week to three weeks for a decision.)

Count the number of off bits (i.e., 0s) in a string of binary bits.