Coding questions
Bloomberg Online Assessment
Overview
Here is how public prep guides and student write-ups describe the Bloomberg online assessment. This is not an official company brochure.
Terminal/fintech data engineering reputation; tough bar.
Usual selection rounds
Rounds students usually mention: Online assessment → Technical interviews (often C++/systems flavoured) → HR
| Item | From student reports |
|---|---|
| Platform | Online assessment |
| Online test summary | Known globally for hard DSA/C++ systems flavour; India campus availability and exact OA change by year. Confirm recruiter process. |
| Eligibility notes | Selective |
| Branches (reported) | CS |
Online test sections
Section-level detail not verified in our source set yet - use the placement email / official PDF.
Extra notes from sources
- Check your college placement email for the platform, section order, and timing.
Sample practice question styles
These are practice questions for speed - not claimed to be from a real Bloomberg live paper.
Coding Q1: Binary search
Problem: Given a sorted array of distinct integers and a target, return the index of target or -1 if missing.
Approach: Maintain lo/hi. Compare mid with target and shrink the half that cannot contain it. Careful with overflow-free mid and empty arrays.
Complexity: O(log n) time
Bloomberg tip: Restate the problem, sketch a brute-force idea, then tighten it. Call out edge cases (empty input, single element, overflow) before you write code.
Coding Q2: Move zeros
Problem: Move all zeros in an array to the end while keeping the relative order of non-zero elements.
Approach: Two pointers: write non-zeros toward the front, then fill the remainder with zeros. Or swap zeros as you scan.
Complexity: O(n) time, O(1) space
Bloomberg tip: Restate the problem, sketch a brute-force idea, then tighten it. Call out edge cases (empty input, single element, overflow) before you write code.
Coding Q3: Rotate array
Problem: Rotate an array to the right by k steps. Example: [1,2,3,4,5,6,7], k = 3 → [5,6,7,1,2,3,4].
Approach: Normalize k %= n. Reverse the whole array, reverse the first k elements, then reverse the rest. That yields the rotation in place.
Complexity: O(n) time, O(1) space
Bloomberg tip: Restate the problem, sketch a brute-force idea, then tighten it. Call out edge cases (empty input, single element, overflow) before you write code.
Coding Q4: First unique character
Problem: Find the first non-repeating character in a string and return its index, or -1 if none exists.
Approach: Count frequencies in one pass (hash map or array of 26 for lowercase). Second pass returns the first index with count 1.
Complexity: O(n) time
Bloomberg tip: Restate the problem, sketch a brute-force idea, then tighten it. Call out edge cases (empty input, single element, overflow) before you write code.
Prep tips from those student reports
- C++ + hard DSA
- Systems basics
Sources
- Bloomberg careers (other)
These notes come from public reports and can differ by campus, year, and role. If your college placement email or the official careers/notification PDF says something different, follow that.
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