The first round was a technical phone screen conducted in a shared coding environment on HackerRank. It involved two LeetCode Easy problems: determining if two BSTs are equal and calculating an individual's annual tax liability.

It went well, and I felt I connected with the interviewer, so I was scheduled for a virtual onsite. I was told this could take up to half the day if I performed well on the technical portion.

Before the interview, I had a call with the recruiter. He provided a very high-level breakdown of what to expect and offered some tips. Bloomberg prefers to maintain flexibility, allowing them to reassign interviewers as needed. Consequently, he couldn't provide detailed information, such as specific topics I'd be tested on or the identities of my interviewers.

This lack of detail worked against me. Based on other Glassdoor reviews for this role, as well as general technical interview trends, I anticipated LeetCode-style algorithm questions for the technical portion and potentially a system design question in the non-technical segment. Therefore, I focused most of my preparation on algorithms, with only a brief review of system design.

To my surprise, I was presented with two questions that were a hybrid of design and coding. I was unprepared but managed to work through the first. During the second question, my nerves got the best of me, and I froze up on a trivial detail. After I got through it, one of the two interviewers cut the interview short. I got the impression he felt it was a waste of his time.

From my conversation with the recruiter, I knew that poor performance in the technical portion would lead to a shortened day. I was therefore glad to meet another engineer in the third round. However, it quickly became clear he was speaking with me merely as a courtesy, as he didn't present a problem and simply asked if I had questions about Bloomberg.

To be fair, asking him questions and hearing about his experience at the company was useful and increased my interest in Bloomberg. He was also candid about the downsides, which I appreciated.

After two business days, I received the rejection email. I haven't heard from the main recruiter I had been in contact with since.

Determine if two BSTs are equal.

Calculate how much income tax a person would need to pay for the year.

Design and implement a way to split payments across a collection of bonds that have balances. The split is determined by payment rules, such as prorata or sequential. These rules could be nested within one another.

Design and implement a 401k savings calculator that returns the balance given the number of years, interest, and contribution amount as parameters.