We are CSOAHELP, a team specializing in remote technical interview assistance. Recently, we helped a candidate from China pass Bloomberg's technical interview and advance to the next round. During the interview, the candidate was stuck several times and came close to giving up on a few questions, but with our real-time text guidance and code hints, he managed to respond effectively. This article breaks down his experience with a deceptively tricky Bloomberg interview question and illustrates how CSOAHELP made the difference.
The candidate was a newly transitioned engineer with limited experience in problem-solving and unfamiliar with Bloomberg’s interview style. He contacted us the night before the interview through a friend. We quickly prepared a package of typical Bloomberg problems and past examples, and set up a remote assistance environment for him — including a secondary screen view, real-time text stream, and prewritten code suggestions. We told him, "Your goal isn't to write perfect code — it’s to present yourself as logical and clear in the eyes of the interviewer."
The interview began not with a classic algorithm problem but with a simulation-based API question:
Implement a function countShips(topRight, bottomLeft)
that returns the number of ships in a rectangular region defined by two coordinate points.
You can only use a given API hasShips(topRight, bottomLeft) which returns true if there is at least one ship in the rectangle.
The candidate was initially confused. He didn’t understand how the API worked, nor what "treat it like a black box" meant. The interviewer clarified: "You should treat this as a black-box API — the only way to know if a region has a ship is by calling hasShips."
We immediately pushed a strategy to his second screen: recursively divide the rectangle into smaller subregions; as long as hasShips returns true, continue to divide until a single-point area is reached. We reinforced the idea with a prompt: "By narrowing down the range, we can determine exactly how many ships are present." He repeated the logic out loud, and we followed up with text guidance covering the core logic and edge case handling. He copied and explained it smoothly. Round one cleared.
The interviewer quickly followed up: "What is the time complexity of your solution? If the grid is 100,000 by 100,000, won't your approach cause infinite recursion?" The candidate had no experience with this kind of complexity analysis. We immediately provided a response template: worst-case complexity involves checking every unit region, but we can optimize with pruning — if hasShips returns false, we immediately terminate recursion. The candidate restated this answer quickly. While not deeply analytical, it was sufficient. The interviewer nodded in approval and moved to the next question.
Next came another problem:
Input: "bloombergisfun", ["bloom", "bloomberg", "is", "fun"]
Output: "bloomberg is fun"
The candidate had never seen this type of question before. We instantly pushed the solution strategy. This is a typical dynamic programming problem, where each position records whether a valid split can be made using the dictionary. However, knowing he wasn’t familiar with DP, we quickly pivoted to a recursive + backtracking approach. Our notes explained that he could try cutting the string from front to back, checking if the prefix is in the dictionary, and recursively validating the rest of the string.
He articulated the idea clearly. The interviewer then asked, "What if the dictionary contains many similar prefixes like 'i', 'in', 'into', 'internet'?" We pushed another helper response: use a prefix tree (Trie) to optimize lookup efficiency. The candidate replied, "In real projects, we can use a Trie for faster prefix matching, but for simplicity, we can simulate it using a set here." The explanation was fluent and complete. The interviewer moved on.
The final question was more engineering-oriented: "How would you adapt this logic to support multiple languages like English, French, and German?" This was not an algorithm problem — it was a system design question. We had anticipated this and prepared a response template. On the second screen, we prompted: abstract the language dictionary interface, load different resources based on the target language, and keep the core logic of the tokenizer consistent. The candidate repeated the answer smoothly and referenced similar practices in NLP pipelines. The interviewer smiled and said, "Very nice."
From start to finish, this interview wasn’t extremely difficult, but it demanded clarity of thought, strong communication, and attention to detail. Without support, the candidate likely would have been stuck on the first problem, let alone handling complexity analysis, optimization suggestions, and system design.
That’s where CSOAHELP shines. We monitor your interview in real time, push guidance at critical moments, offer optimization advice on follow-up questions, and ensure your responses are articulate and convincing. You don’t need to invent answers under pressure — you simply repeat or paraphrase our suggestions. Everything happens silently. The interviewer remains unaware. You stay calm and composed.
In the end, this candidate successfully passed Bloomberg’s technical interview and advanced to the system design round.
What you see is "he answered well." What we did was "make sure he could answer well." Big tech interviews are no longer about who types faster — they’re about your engineering perspective, clarity of logic, and ability to communicate effectively.
Many excellent engineers get misjudged due to language barriers, poor articulation, or performance anxiety. CSOAHELP acts as your second brain — you focus on the conversation, we handle how to say it right.
We’ve helped numerous candidates succeed at companies like Google, Meta, Apple, Bloomberg, and Stripe. If you don’t want to lose a great opportunity due to small mistakes, get in touch with us.
It’s not that you’re not good enough — you just need someone who helps you express it clearly.
经过csoahelp的面试辅助，候选人获取了良好的面试表现。如果您需要面试辅助或面试代面服务，帮助您进入梦想中的大厂，请随时联系我。
If you need more interview support or interview proxy practice, feel free to contact us. We offer comprehensive interview support services to help you successfully land a job at your dream company.
