Bloomberg Sr. Software Engineer reviews

Poor codebase and development tools creates a maintenance nightmare, you can find yourself spending more time firefighting and working around inefficient old code than creating new apps. Culture changed a few years ago to a 'metric' based system where you get rewarded more for ticking boxes and saying 'yes' to the right people further up the management chain (don't believe anyone who says the company has a flat structure - there are 8 levels above mine and this is typical). Coupled with their philosophy of mainly promoting eager to please, inexperienced graduates this has led to whole layers of incompetent mangement led by similar, more senior managers who have no industry or engineering experience other than at Bloomberg. The only way of improving your prospects is by enrolling in a 'leadership' course led by the very same people, few people are promoted based on ability. There is no distinction between project managers and those with the necessary people skills to manage groups. Pension is not particularly good. Used to be able to work from home occasionally but now this must be approved by senior managers, just one example of the atmosphere of mistrust which had led to a general atmosphere of low morale.

Like the other programmers pointed out, it is a dead end for senior developers. Bloomberg uses proprietary technologies. Your skills would become obsolete and irrelevant to other companies in 2~3 years. If you plan to just get some experience and add a line in your resume, this place is definitely a good place to start. If you have plan to stay for long term, think again. Bloomberg used to offer generous compensation packages and take care of loyal employees. But since Mike left for New York City Hall, the culture has changed. Loyalty is less important than profitability. If you get stuck for more than 5 years and still don't get chance to move up the ladders, then you should definitely consider moving to other companies before it becomes too late for you to brush up your fading skills and memory from college.