Interview Experiences

Real candidates, real loops: every round, what was asked, and how it ended.

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18 stories

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BloombergSoftware Engineer
Jun 2026

Two System Design Rounds: Holiday Service and VWAP Pipeline

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Technical ScreenPremium0
BloombergSoftware Engineer
May 2026

Detecting Fraudulent Transactions Within 60 Minutes

Coding Interview | Fraud Transactions I recently interviewed with a coding problem about fraudulent transactions, so I am recording it here. The problem roughly gave me a transaction list: I had to find the fraudulent transactions under two rules: A single transaction with an amount greater than $2,000 is immediately considered fraudulent. Transactions from the same account within 60 minutes are…

Technical Screen0
BloombergSoftware Engineer
Mar 2026

Rejected After a Brutal VO Round

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
BloombergSoftware Engineer
Mar 2026

Top K Frequent Elements Phone Screen

The first round was a standard phone technical screen — coding only, no behavioral questions. The difficulty is generally on the higher end of LeetCode medium, and the focus is on whether your data structure choice is reasonable and whether your code is clean. The question I got was to design a data structure that supports insert, delete, and returning the current Top K most frequent elements. Th…

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BloombergSoftware Engineer
Mar 2026

Surprise Domain Quiz, Then a Sprawling Streaming System Design

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RejectedOnsiteXP0
BloombergSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Feb 2026

Four Rounds, an EM No-Show, and a Fast Offer

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OfferOnsiteXP0
BloombergSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Two Campus Onsite Rounds and a Mystery Third Round

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In progressOnsiteXP0
BloombergSoftware Engineer
Feb 2026

Four Coding Problems in One Technical Screen

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Technical ScreenXP0
BloombergSoftware Engineer
Dec 2025

Simplified Grep, Friend-Request Math, and a BQ Round

Round 1: implement a simplified version of grep — find lines in a file containing a specific string, and also account for extensibility to flags. I just honestly clarified requirements first, then wrote the parsing plus the string matching. The focus of this problem isn't really the algorithm, it's whether you can write clean, extensible code. Round 2: given an array of ages, compute the total nu…

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BloombergSoftware Engineer
Nov 2025

Final Round Focused Entirely on My Solo Full-Stack Project

Hey, sharing my interview experience from Bloomberg's final round today. We did about 2 minutes of small talk to open, then the HM went straight in: "I'm particularly interested in this full stack project you did for a real client. Let's focus mostly on that, I'd like to understand how you work." As soon as I heard that I knew this round wasn't about how strong my technical skills were, it was ab…

OfferOnsite0
BloombergSoftware Engineer
Oct 2025

Phone Screen, Super Day, and EM Round to Offer

I've been reading everyone's interview reports here on the forum, so now that I've got an offer, I wanted to give back with my own. 11.12 — Phone Screen It was a question from a coding-practice site — I don't remember the specifics. Follow-up: if you keep inserting numbers that are bigger than the last one at the end, how do you update it? And what if you insert random numbers regardless of size,…

OfferOnsite0
BloombergSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Oct 2025

Rejected After a Van Eck Sequence Question

Painful memory from an interview I did last year, around September-October. I was in a funk for a month after it. Bloomberg's bar is basically two medium-to-hard questions, and you're expected to get the optimal solution. It was a virtual interview, and the interviewer showed up 10 minutes late. I sat in the meeting watching her keep logging in and out, and when she finally turned her camera on,…

RejectedOnsite0
BloombergSoftware EngineerNew Grad
Oct 2025

A GHC Resume Pickup Ends in a Failed First Virtual Onsite

Application timeline: 9/26/2025: Found a referral and applied for the 2026 Software Engineer - New York role. The position isn't open to the public — you can only apply through a referral. 11/2025: Went to GHC'25, talked to a Bloomberg engineer, dropped off a paper resume, and saw them mark it up. 11/13/2025: Unexpectedly got the schedule-VO (virtual onsite) email — must have been picked up throu…

RejectedOnsite0
BloombergData EngineerSenior+
Sep 2025

SQL String Ops and a 20-Minute OOD Screen

The role was Senior Software Engineer - Data Engineering. I couldn't really find much interview experience for this role online, so let me contribute one here. The interviewer was a woman, not very enthusiastic. 40 minutes, 2 questions — the first was SQL, the second felt more like OOD. The first SQL question wasn't too hard logically, the hard part was that it tested string operations. I roughly…

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BloombergSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Two Rough Phone Screens and a Cryptic Tree Puzzle

The interview experience itself was actually pretty good in one sense — just spray and pray, blindly mass-applying with your eyes closed, and there's a decent chance you'll land some phone screens. I landed four HR calls total: one slot already got filled, another is still waiting to be scheduled, so right now I've actually done two phone screens. But honestly, the experience itself was not great…

No responseTechnical Screen0
BloombergSoftware Engineer
Sep 2025

Three Onsite Rounds in One Day

This week's onsite report — all three rounds happened on the same day, and I probably failed. In the third round, the manager didn't ask me anything at all, he just told me straight up to ask him any questions I had. I stayed calm and asked a few things, it took about half an hour, then he said I could ask one last question and that was it. Round 1: coding Round 2: SD, with the team lead Round 3:…

In progressOnsite0
BloombergSenior Software Engineer - Data EngineeringSenior+
Jul 2025

Recruiter Promised Easy-Medium, Got String-Heavy SQL and Rushed OOD Coding

I couldn't find much interview experience for this specific role online, so I'm contributing mine here. The role was Senior Software Engineer - Data Engineering. The interviewer wasn't very enthusiastic. 40 minutes, two questions — the first was SQL, the second felt more like an OOD (object-oriented design) question. The logic in the first SQL question wasn't actually that hard — what was hard wa…

Technical Screen0
BloombergProduct Manager
Jul 2025

Efficient Process, Rejected the Next Day

Fresh rejection from Bloomberg. A recruiter reached out on LinkedIn. They quickly scheduled the first round, an HR sync, about 30 minutes. They asked about my general work experience, whether I owned the roadmap, whether I had experience launching products globally, how I worked with cross-functional teams, and what the product I owned was like. They walked me through the overall interview proces…

RejectedTechnical Screen0

What are interview experiences?

An interview experience is a candidate's own account of a hiring loop — not a question bank entry. It tells you the shape of the process: how many rounds there were, what each round actually tested, how long the gaps between them ran, and what the recruiter said at the end. That context is the part a question list cannot give you.

How to read them

Weight recent write-ups more heavily — interview loops change, often within a year. Read several for the same company and role rather than one: a single account tells you what one interviewer asked, while five tell you what the bar is. Note the outcome badge too, since a rejection write-up usually explains the gap far more precisely than an offer one.

Share your own

Every published experience earns 50 XP, and each of the first 3 likes it receives in a day earns you 10 XP more. Likes must come from established accounts; like-for-like swaps and likes from your own second account are not paid. Write it while the details are fresh — the round order, the exact prompts, and how much time you were given are what the next reader needs.

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