Bridgewater Associates Interview

Woohoo! On Thursday I had a phone interview with Bridgewater Associates, and the next day I got a request for a follow-up with a "senior technologist." That might be a chance for me to fail spectacularly, but at least I get to tell you about the first-round screener.

The Bridgewater interview was definitely fast-paced but not incredibly hard. The phone call had been scheduled for 2:30 on Thursday some weeks earlier; at 2:35 I got the call from "Thomas", and, after a brief disclaimer that I would be recorded and the realization that I was on speakerphone, the questions began. Thomas and the other interviewer (nameless Indian guy, I'm not sure he was ever introduced) right away wanted to know about my work at Charles River Analytics last summer. I told them briefly what the project was and my involvement in it. They wanted more details; this was a pattern throughout the interview - I would explain something, and the would want to know more. "Tell me more about that" or "can you explain that" or (my favorite) "why?" So I went through pretty much every aspect of my coding responsibilities, the team dynamics, and conflict with Eric (a full-timer there) and how I resolved it. It's a good thing I've had so many interviews before, so I had a chance to hone my answers to these CRA questions.

The technical question was the same one that N. had when he applied for a full time position. It is not unlikely that they reuse this one a lot. The question was about taxicab numbers: numbers that can be written as the sum of two distinct pairs of cubes. The problem was to find all taxicab numbers between 1 (1^3) and a million (100^3). My answer was not ideal; I started with the incredibly dumb answer and was walked through the different parts of the solution later. N. had to do detailed run-time analysis, but I did not. I think my interviewers were very interested in my CRA experience (both technical and personal), which did not leave us as much time for the technical question. In any case, there was a hash table involved at the end (remember to use hash tables always!!).

The final question was kind of from left field, though thanks to N. I was expecting something like it. They wanted me to tell them about something interesting that I do or did or have done in the past. I told them about the trip to Patagonia over IAP (January inter-activities period) and how it made me realize I really like hiking. I had not prepared for this question, so I stumbled a bit as they drilled farther and farther into my answer ("why?"), but I think I did okay. The final part was asking them any questions that I had. I asked them about previous intern projects, which took a good couple minutes. Then we were done.

I'll follow this post up with the second-round phone interview; I'm not sure if I'll go out for an on-site even if I do qualify, since I am really leaning towards Microsoft and the PM job right now (oh yeah, I got the offer from them last week). We'll have to see.