Sr. Software Engineer at BloomBerg

How it went

What they would tell you

How to prepare

Round by round

1. 1

   Coding Round 160 min

   Conceptually similar to the Gas Station problem, but more difficult, interviewer asked multiple follow-up questions to test my understanding of the concepts and edge cases

   • Minimize Max Distance to Gas Station
2. 2

   Coding Round 260 min

   This round included two challenging problems Modified Sum of Two Integers

   • Restrictions: Cannot use addition operator, loops, or bitwise operations

   • I used recursion, modulo, and integer division, guided by hints from the interviewer

   • Discussion focused heavily on edge cases, recursion depth, and alternative approaches LFU Cache

   • Implemented a Least Frequently Used cache with O(1) operations for get and put

   • Modified Sum of Two Integers
   • LFU Cache
3. 3

   System Design Round90 min

   The final round was a system design

   • Problem: Design a web application to support user onboarding, password reset, requests for company information, and IT help requests.
   • Key constraints: Highly sensitive financial data, independent deployments, and authenticated/validated requests.
   • Discussion points included:
   • Database trade-offs: SQL vs NoSQL, ACID vs CAP considerations
   • Load balancing and caching strategies
   • Blue/green deployments and API gateways
   • Cloud vs on-premise deployments

What came up