I got contacted on Linkedin by HR and was advised o apply to a specific role after she sent my resume to their teams. This whole process was a big lie. They told me there will be a coding interview. Instead a guy showed up a few minutes late which could not speak English clearly (I had to ask him several times to repeat himself to understand what he was saying). He told me this is not a coding interview. I was surprised but I went along anyway. He started asking me to explain BigO of different STL containers ... so make sure to memorize those like a parrot. Then he asked me some multi-threading questions. It is very annoying to tell you the interview is about something and you are in that state of mind then asked totally different questions. p.s. He didn't know there is a language called Elixir and asked me about it when I mentioned I worked with it, like how is this relevant?
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Multi-threading primitives in C++ BigO of STL containers Highlight project from resume .. I saved best for last: Rate the programming languages you have on your resume from 0-10 ...
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Bloomberg in Sep 2023
Interview
The interviewer was late but no worries. We started the interview and it went well. It was a 2D matrix problem, not terribly hard. I got it done. The interviewer acknowledged that I had covered all use cases and we discussed how to optimize it. The interviewer agreed with my suggestions. In the leftover time we talked about working at Bloomberg. Then next day they get back to me and tell me they decided to move on which was surprising caus the interview couldn't have gone better. I have taken enough interviews myself and done enough leetcode to know when I have screwed up. That interview was close to flawless. So they decided to pass for some other reason which their HR did not share even after I asked to recheck if there was a mixup.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Bloomberg in Sep 2023
Interview
By far, the worst interview experience I've had. The interviewer was a junior software engineer with no interviewing skills. He was cold and uninterested in my skills and experience. He never smiled, didn't know which role I was applying for, or at what stage of the interview I was at. The LeetCode answer was right in front of him. I am disappointed in how immature Bloomberg's interviewing process is. I can't imagine what the company is like internally judging by the quality of the interview process. It's not a culture I'd want to work in.