A recruiter from Gambit Technologies reached out and helped facilitate/schedule the initial phone screen. This was for a Trade Order Management System (TOMS) contract position.

There was one interviewer on the call, and he asked me to solve a medium LeetCode (LC) question (#133).

Next was the virtual onsite interview, which consisted of four back-to-back 30-minute sessions with two interviewers each. I was asked to solve LC questions (#1, #139, and #1396) in the first hour and a half. During the last 30-minute session, I was given an object-oriented design (OOD) problem involving a vending machine. The OOD problem caught me off guard, and I didn't do very well on it. I verbally acknowledged to the interviewers that I felt I didn't do very well.

The next day, I found out that I was allowed to move forward to what was supposed to be the "final" round with the hiring manager (HM). During the final moment of that interview, the HM brought up the fact that I had made that remark and asked me if I'd "like" to have another shot at an OOD problem. I reluctantly agreed, but felt I should've been given an up or down vote without being put through further rounds of interviews.

Early the next week, I had one more round with what was supposed to be an OOD problem – but it wasn't. There was a miscommunication of some sort, but it was instead a pure refactoring problem. I couldn't understand what either interviewer was asking me because they were both simultaneously barking at me, and their instructions weren't clear at all. Not to mention that I had a very hard time understanding them in general. As if that wasn't enough, my internet connection went down for 10 minutes, which exacerbated an already bad situation.

I personally feel that the hiring manager was going to keep putting me through additional interviews until I "failed" at some point, since I believe they had already made up their minds and were looking to justify the pre-determined decision. My advice to you is that if they ask you to do additional rounds, you should put your foot down and say "either hire me or don't." It's comical because one of the recruiters kept trying to calm my anxiety by incessantly repeating that Bloomberg "really, really wants to hire you!" Yeah buddy, sure. Lol.

To whomever at Bloomberg that cares to listen: 30 minutes per problem is really not enough unless a candidate spends significant amounts of time memorizing and working LC problems. Perhaps you should limit each 30-minute round to one-on-one panels (one interviewer and one interviewee). It's very stressful to have two interviewers talking over each other (particularly if you can't understand them) and issuing contradictory statements. Also, there really should be more time to allow the candidate to ask questions and perform some fact-finding. My experience was that the interview process was 90-95% LeetCode and "problem-solving" challenges. This doesn't give the candidate much time to figure out if the role is even worth their pursuit.

LC #1, #133, #139, #1396.

Vending Machine Object Oriented Design.

A question involving some unintelligible, vague instructions for refactoring an "AppStoreEntry" class.