Applied on 7/27 and was asked for a non-technical phone screener with HR the next day. After speaking with HR, we determined a specific team I would be best suited for.

Then I applied specifically for this new team within Bloomberg. Received a request for a technical phone/code pair (HackerRank) interview for 8/17. Due to scheduling conflicts, the technical round was moved to 8/18. I was asked about my background and then to solve this problem (in any language):

Given two arrays of sorted integers where array A is large enough to fit all elements in both array A and array B, how would you merge the two arrays together in sorted order? (Hint: Double pointers starting at the last element in each array)

After the first technical, I was invited to an onsite interview in NYC on 8/30. Bloomberg was kind enough to pay for airfare, hotel stay (Manhattan, one night), and corporate taxi (airport to hotel). Each technical round onsite involved two senior engineers.

1st Round (HackerRank - Any language): Maximize stock values where you must:

• Buy before you sell
• Index of input array is the day of stock price
• Return maximum profit and index of buy/sell
• (Optional) Think about short selling (selling before you buy)

2nd Round (HackerRank - Any language): Given a string, remove all matches of 3 or more consecutive characters (Candy Crush style):

• i.e. ABBBCC -> ACC
• i.e. ABBCCCB -> A

Theoretical: Design a browser history log that holds up to n logs:

• No duplicates (duplicate moves to top of list)
• Implement using a list (i.e., queue) to hold history for fast and easy reordering (i.e., addition/removal) (simple pointer reassignments)
• Implement using a hashmap for fast lookup to see if duplicates exist (key -> URL, value -> pointer to index in list)
• Handle when browser history reaches max n logs

After the two technical rounds, I was escorted out of the building and treated to lunch with two other engineers. At this point, I knew I was not going to the final rounds with HR, as they took my security badge on the way out.