Bloomberg reviews

4.0

79% would recommend to a friend

(8,233 total reviews)
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Michael R. Bloomberg and Vlad Kliatchko

85% approve of CEO

73% positive business outlook

Bloomberg has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 8,233 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Bloomberg employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Informationstechnologie industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

8K reviews
4.0
Dec 18, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's very bright and sunny, which might seem trivial but I personally find it very good for my mood to work in a bright office. I like the financial aspects of the work, so once I found the team working on precisely what I was interested in, I became quite happy and satisfied. Don't worry too much about the "free food", most of it is junk food, though the fruit is great. If you like finance more than cutting edge software engineering, you'll find it a pleasant enough place to work at (on the good teams). The bad teams, well, they are out there, do your homework before accepting the offer.

Cons

Some of the infrastructure is legacy. This shouldn't be a con for any seasoned developer, it's a fact of life, but if you're a whiny b**** straight out of college, you might find this distasteful. There is some politicking, and people get promoted partially based on their temperament and how well they get along with other managers. Again, this shouldn't be a con, but if you are young and naive, you might find this also to be distasteful. The only really big con is the annual review process, which is a curve-fitted algorithm to award future compensation based on relative (within your peer group) performance. I would advise newcomers to negotiate as hard as you can before signing, because once you are in there's a good possibility your compensation will stagnate.

1.0
Nov 29, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It pays well, and is very secure. Sometimes there are free vegetables.

Cons

It is virtually impossible to get anything done here. The more ambitious and creative you are, the more you will hate it. You can't even use the Internet, which makes research and development practically impossible. I've worked for big banks, big tech, military intelligence, and I've never been in such a locked-down environment. Employees (and often co-workers) are treated as the enemy. The more you accomplish, the more visible a target you become. The technology is abyssmal, antiquated, and crippled. Working here is a dead-end because your skills will rot and become utterly irrelevant to the real world. Also, it is a sweat-shop. You will work 16 hour days on more than one occasion and you will be seen on weekends much more than any rational person would like. Also, constant interruptions, bright lights, loud noises, uncomfortable cramped quarters.

2.0
Oct 3, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The FSD training class will teach you what you need to know about Bloomberg's proprietary technologies. Good opportunity for somebody straight out of uni, who knows C++ to a reasonable but not expert level. For those with a few years experience, getting the same pay and going through the same class is less appealing. Bloomberg's RAPID enviroment and BAS framework are easy to use and quick to develop new features on. Bloomberg work you hard but the satisfaction you get from getting a lot of work done can be addictive. Free snacks and drinks in the pantry is also a plus. Lavish summer parties. Nice new "lunch room".

Cons

Bloomberg are focused on being first to market with new features which means pressure and deadlines and a big tradeoff against writing good quality code. Business guys can be aggressive and look through you, and not enough time is given to planning or design. Compile and linking against all of Bloomberg's dependent libraries takes ages and sometimes fails. The architecture is somewhat dated due to this, plus the presence of legacy fortran code. Outages affecting development occur too frequently. You can befriend training colleagues but most people keep themselves to themselves. The initial training class requires a lot of work and staying late and has an 80% pass mark. Working hours 8am to 6pm or 9pm to 7pm.

Viewing 205 - 207 of 8,233 Reviews

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