Bloomberg Interview Experience — SWE New grad (2024 )
After applying through a unique link that seemed to be a ‘leaked’ backdoor into the application process, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from a recruiter. This unconventional route had evidently sparked their interest. During our conversation, the recruiter inquired about my background and swiftly moved to schedule my first technical interview.
Technical Round 1:
There were 2 coding questions and time limit is 45 minutes and the platform is Hackerrank. They will not run your code only logic and explanation they looking for and they are language agnostic.
1. Flatten the doubly linked list
Given the head of the first level of the list, flatten the list so that
all the nodes appear in a single-level, doubly linked list. Let curr be a
node with a child list. The nodes in the child list should appear after curr
and before curr.next in the flattened list.
Return the head of the flattened list. The nodes in the list must have all
of their child pointers set to null.
Leetcode: https://leetcode.com/problems/flatten-a-multilevel-doubly-linked-list/description/?ref=gary-lai
2. All path from source to destination in the graph
Given a directed acyclic graph (DAG) of n nodes labeled from 0 to n - 1,
find all possible paths from node 0 to node n - 1 and return them in any
order.
The graph is given as follows: graph[i] is a list of all nodes you can
visit from node i (i.e., there is a directed edge from node i to node
graph[i][j]).
Leetcode: https://leetcode.com/problems/flatten-a-multilevel-doubly-linked-list/description/?ref=gary-lai
I received an invitation for a virtual onsite interview at Bloomberg, which included two technical rounds scheduled an hour apart, followed by a round with a technical recruiter. Each of these rounds was conducted by two Bloomberg software engineers and had a knockout format and
Interview format :
First 10 min: Resume based and Exp based technical questions
Next 40 min: 2 coding questions
Last 10 min: Opens for any questions from my side.
Same day Virtual Onsite — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —— — — →
Technical Round 2:
Started with my introduction and resume based questions.
1. Difference between Monolithic vs Microservice arch.
2. Explain my projects.
3. Internship experienceCoding:
Leetcode: https://leetcode.com/problems/design-an-ordered-stream/description/
1. There is a stream of n (idKey, value) pairs arriving in an arbitrary order,
where idKey is an integer between 1 and n and value is a string. No two pairs
have the same id.
Design a stream that returns the values in increasing order of their IDs by
returning a chunk (list) of values after each insertion. The concatenation of
all the chunks should result in a list of the sorted values.
Implement the OrderedStream class:
OrderedStream(int n) Constructs the stream to take n values.
String[] insert(int idKey, String value) Inserts the pair (idKey, value) into
the stream, then returns the largest possible chunk of currently inserted
values that appear next in the order.
2. Top K Frequent Elements
Given an integer array nums and an integer k, return the k most frequent
elements. You may return the answer in any order.
Example 1:
Input: nums = [1,1,1,2,2,3], k = 2
Output: [1,2]
Example 2:
Input: nums = [1], k = 1
Output: [1]
Leetcode: https://leetcode.com/problems/top-k-frequent-elements/description/?ref=laigary.comFollow up:
Lot of discussion around my solutions.
1. Lot of Follow up questions like do it in O(n) time.
2. what if you have millions of streams and how you will change you solutions.In the end interview said I cleared it and moving to next round.
Technical Round 3:
2 SWE Were there and directly started with coding questions.
No Introduction , no bullshit
1. Insert Delete GetRandom O(1)
Leetcode: https://leetcode.com/problems/insert-delete-getrandom-o1/description/
Discuss space and time Complexity and extend this question for duplicate as well. Leetcode (HARD ) : https://leetcode.com/problems/insert-delete-getrandom-o1-duplicates-allowed/
2. String to Integer (atoi)
Leetcode: https://leetcode.com/problems/string-to-integer-atoi/description/
Clear the round and they moved to recruiter round.
Technical Recruiter Round:
1. Describe a project where your initial approach was incorrect.
2. How did you identify the mistake and what steps did you take to correct it?
3. Can you share an experience where you had to change your strategy midway
through a project due to unforeseen challenges?
4. Tell us about a time when you had to significantly alter your
approach in a project to achieve better results.
5. Describe a situation where you had to revise your plans or strategies
to address unexpected developments in a project.
6. Have you ever encountered a major obstacle in a project that required a
complete change in your approach? How did you handle it?
7. Can you discuss an instance where you had to rethink your strategy or
approach to better align with project goals or realities?Result : Reject ( Got generic rejection mail after 3 days)
Handling Edge Cases: Paying attention to edge cases in coding problems is crucial.
Behavioral Responses: Providing structured and thoughtful responses using the STAR method in behavioral interviews is important.
Approach to Problem Solving: In technical interviews, it’s vital to choose the right approach. Even if a problem seems daunting, it’s better to attempt it with the correct methodology rather than opting for a simpler but incorrect solution.
Closing Thoughts
Though I faced rejection, the experience was enriching. I learned a lot about myself and where I need to improve. I’m looking forward to more opportunities and sharing my experiences with others who might find them helpful.
Resources
- Amazon leadership principle based questions and how to answer them
- Frequently asked Bloomberg interview Questions.
Thank you for taking the time to read. Feel free to connect with me on Linkedin if you require any assistance! I’m more than happy to help with your interview preparation or provide guidance for your career.
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