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I figure this perhaps the best place to ask this.

What technology stack is used in Bloomberg? I'm C++ developer, and I definitely prefer C++ to C, so I don't want to touch C unless it's strictly necessary. I've had my fair share of maintaining legacy systems, and it's not something I enjoy. From my reading it seems they use C heavily.

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    $\begingroup$ What reading? Any references would be helpful. $\endgroup$ – Shane Feb 19 '11 at 14:54
  • $\begingroup$ I should add, I'm asking from a developer wanting to join them point of view. $\endgroup$ – Mohamed Bana Feb 19 '11 at 16:22
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But what you see from the outside is just an interface, no? And C interfaces are much easier to handle, e.g. from Excel and other common tools. Almost a decade ago I wrote a (firm-internal, unreleased) interface from R to Bloomberg, that only worked because the C interface permitting me to use gcc / MinGW (as required by R) along with the dll/lib from Bloomberg (presumably built with a Visual C compiler). You cannot mix and match C++ libraries across compilers.

That said, I think I have seen job ads for Bloomberg mentioning C++ skills.

As an aside, I also recall an NVidia press release from 1 1/2 years ago when Bloomberg switched to a bunch of GPUs for simulation-based pricing models so they probably do into the 'whatever gets the job done' school of tool deployment.

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    $\begingroup$ +1 It's the interface that's important, not the internals of their black box. $\endgroup$ – G__ Feb 19 '11 at 15:50
  • $\begingroup$ Quite so. I expanded my a little to stress that a C interface is simpler / open to different toolchains which makes providing an API a lot easier. $\endgroup$ – Dirk Eddelbuettel Feb 19 '11 at 17:06
  • $\begingroup$ The additional comment "developer wanting to join them" does put a different spin on things. $\endgroup$ – G__ Feb 19 '11 at 18:10
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    $\begingroup$ @Greg Yes, and the different spin is that the OP should ask them during the interview rather than rely on second-hand info from here. $\endgroup$ – chrisaycock Feb 19 '11 at 18:50
  • $\begingroup$ @Chris Surely they'll discuss during the interview, but I don't think it's wrong to want to bone up on relevant technologies as a pre-interview refresher. $\endgroup$ – G__ Feb 19 '11 at 19:22
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I hate to recite Wikipedia, but it seems like the answer is there. To summarize, the legacy Bloomberg server was written in a mix of Fortran and C, and more recently they've begun adding C++ and embedded Javascript components. Different clients use languages appropriate to their platforms.

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Bloomberg has client/server API libs for most modern programming languages including C++, Java, and .Net.

You don't have to hit the C level api, unless you really want to :-)

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  • $\begingroup$ I can confirm this - they have open-sourced some of their low-level C++ libraries too: openbloomberg.com/bsl $\endgroup$ – JBRWilkinson Oct 10 '13 at 14:35
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Tons of legacy Fortran and C, some recent C++ and Java. Lots of in-house technologies of debatable quality, including for things where there exist good open-source alternatives.

If you care about using modern technologies and don't want to touch legacy systems, I'd go elsewhere.

Edit: there is some variability across teams with regards to the technology stack they use on a day-to-day basis. You may be able to find a team that suits your requirements. However, bear in mind that your mobility within the organization will be restricted if you're not prepared to deal with legacy technologies and systems.

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  • $\begingroup$ They build most everything from scratch for security. Almost everything is proprietary. There is a strict internal review for each version. They are very paranoid. There's a trade off using libraries. What if there is a bug in the library? Then you have to wait for someone else to fix it, or you have to dig into the source code and figure it out yourself, in which case it might have been faster to just build it yourself. $\endgroup$ – Chloe Oct 23 '12 at 3:37
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Just read their jobs section. They use a lot of C++, use Javascript for the terminal interface, and sometimes Java/Ruby for other random stuff.

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