Firstly, there was a phone interview. This consisted of simple questions about computer science, covering data structures, the difference between the heap and the stack, and some OS knowledge. It was followed by a short, language-specific test on HackerRank. I was asked to reverse a string in place and then implement a basic insertion sort for an array of characters.

Later that day, I was informed that I had been successful in the phone interview and was invited to a face-to-face interview at their offices in London. That interview consisted of three sections. The first was a 2:1 interview, where I was asked C++ syntax-specific questions. For instance, given a short section of code, I was asked the types of certain variables and the resulting types of certain operations on them. I also had to write a program to calculate the lowest common multiple of a multiset of integers, find the maximum height of a non-self-balancing binary tree, and discuss the complexity of my algorithms.

The next section was a 1:1 interview with a senior developer. This was a more theoretical test, with more focus on higher-level ideas, such as which data structures would be applicable to certain types of problems, rather than worrying about lower-level syntactic implementation. I was asked to design an algorithm to process financial data and return the highest movers of the day.

The final section was an HR-based section, where I was shown the Bloomberg Terminal and its basic functionality. This was followed by a tour of the offices and introductions to people. Everyone was friendly and willing to give information about the jobs available.

Type of variables and operations on them

Maximum height of non-self-balancing binary tree

Lowest Common Multiple of a multiset

Data structures and algorithms involved in financial trades monitoring