I was working with an internal recruiter who, I don't know if she typically recruits for this type of role, but her knowledge of what it was and what the interview process entailed was minimal at best. She was very nice, though, and found two roles with groups that were interested in interviewing me; both roles seemed like good fits. She described the process as:

• A one-hour programming/get-to-know-the-role interview
• Half-a-day on-site

So for the first round, both interviewers asked pretty similar programming questions but left different amounts of time for my questions about the role, which was fine, honestly. I figured I could probably ask more when on-site, and neither of them were with either of the groups I was interviewing for, so I could really only get a high-level understanding at best. That aside, Bloomberg uses a site called HackerRank which gives you and the interviewer a collaborative programming environment, which is pretty neat.

One of the groups decided to bring me on-site, and all I was told was that it would be half a day. That is it.

Now, part of this is definitely my fault because I assumed that the on-site interview would be like most other companies' on-site interviews: meet with someone in HR, talk about the role a lot (like what I could bring to it, what the team needs, and what the team even works on exactly), meet members of the team, do some problem-solving at a high level, maybe one more programming question, and/or a brain-teaser.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. First off, and this is probably what I'm the most upset about, is that none of the four guys I interviewed with on-site were in my group. None! I don't even think they even interacted with my group. How can someone take a job without knowing anything about who or what they'd be working with?

I should also mention that Bloomberg's policy is not to send out an agenda prior to the interview since they want to allow for "flexibility" for their employees. But really, you can't even send out a high-level overview in the form of a bulleted list?

Then, the interview was not half a day but two hours. When I arrived, the person I was supposed to meet was out that day—fine, it happens—and the person who was his stand-in was very nice and offered me lunch, which was not on the "agenda." I'm not sure how I was supposed to arrive to an interview hungry at 1 p.m. and eat lunch while doing an interview, but alright, a nice enough gesture.

Then we went into a small meeting room and were joined by another member of his team, and I was given yet another programming question, just like the ones I had done over the phone. So not only was I not prepared to be asked more generic programming questions, but this one was on something I hadn't even thought about in like ten years. The other guy decided to use the experience to teach me about the concept of divide-and-conquer, like I was born yesterday.

Awkward enough, but it gets better. They left, and I met two more guys: one from the same team as the first two and one from some totally different team. One of them spent about thirty minutes asking me the kinds of high-level, how-would-you-approach-this-problem questions I had been expecting, so it was nice to talk to him and think about those kinds of solutions that would actually be relevant to the job I may or may not have been interviewing for.

Then, the other guy gives me YET ANOTHER programming question, and the best part is that it was the same one as what the first guys asked me!

It's clear that no one talks to each other at this company, even when they're sitting in the same tiny open-floor-plan room eight hours a day. And what kind of recruiter lacks a standardized email they can send around to all candidates with some kind of "what to expect at your interview" description?

The day-to-day at Bloomberg might be fine, but if their interview process is any indication, run fast and far in the other direction.

Breadth-First Search.

Both on-site interviews asked me to implement Breadth-First Search. Is this like a burning need at this company?

Can't anyone over there just look it up and implement it in five minutes like I would?