Doesn't matter. It's same as any tech. Need to understand mathematics and algos and have great fluency in code. Can't speak for the other guy but I suspect he's same: no amount of skill "aligning stakeholders" and "managing cross-functional teams" is of much use in the business if you're at a prop shop. Have to be able to write code. No "blocked on other team", "Kernel Timestamping API is undocumented" etc.

I am a strategist at a smallish boutique quant investment firm. This is how we think about hiring a junior person. It's not all that different for a more senior person, but actual development experience would likely be more important, we would expect more contribution sooner from a more experienced person. More senior jobs also might have more specific responsibilities and therefore require more specific knowledge of technologies, etc. Many junior analyst roles support the team as a whole and there is less concern around experience with specific technologies, typically.

More generally it doesn't have to be bars. Go to where the people are that you want to meet.

My reply was somewhat facetious; though I have heard some pretty crazy personal anecdotes about what happens in the Bloomberg chat service.

But even taken at face-value, Bloomberg's annual fee is comparable to the yearly cost of an undergraduate degree - so it might very well be a fair deal.