Bloomberg is great when it comes to pay and benefits. Compared to most other companies I have seen, the vacation, sick, leave time, and other misc benefits are pretty generous.
If you find the right group of coworkers, they can literally make an otherwise horrible day bearable.
Sadly, that is just about where it ends.
Getting even minor things done (such a programming enhancements, implementing task efficiencies) can be impossible. Their infrastructure is held together with duct tape and bubblegum and their business managers are only interested in getting the next shiny new thing to market; never mind if it's buggy and doesn't work.
The company, as a whole, also does not value its employees at all. They are just cogs in the machine. If one leaves, they just get replaced. HR doesn't care to understand why, or address ongoing issues because they can simply find someone else. Pretty sad because a lot of the older employees, who literally helped to build and shape the company, are treated pretty badly and the new ones, fresh out of college, tend to come in, stay a few years, then leave.
Work-life balance is terrible and the company lacks any reasonable amount of flexibility. The company has actually grown in the past year and a half, with most employees working remotely. But they still won't even consider allowing anyone to continue to do so, even if means much happier and more productive employees. This is extra ridiculous because of the global nature of the company. P
ProsBenefits, pay; coworkers tend to be great fun
ConsInflexibility, lack of diversity/racism, incompetent managers, useless HR
Some bosses can be passive/aggressive; at Doomberg, I had two bosses: one passive, and one aggressive. We ran a shared services operation that was abused by those procuring services and internally within the department. Most everyone working here was miserable and took it out on each other. Few allies existed to protect each other from internal politicking and backstabbing.
We were encouraged to critically analyze our process, but the results were ignored when any honesty about the dysfunction was presented with solutions to remedy them. Hostility and intimidation, doing little work but kissing butt and blaming colleagues to get ahead were common tactics. The testosterone overload is poisonous, and the pay is far below market rate.
The mixture of finance and journalism is lethally punishing since all projects needed to be completed immediately and somehow accurately. International collaborations meant you were working nonstop around the clock with calls, emails, and meetings taking place in all time zones all days of the week. Do not expect to work only 40 hours a week and have your nights and weekends to yourself undisturbed. Do not expect anyone in power to have any sympathy or desire to hear of your attempts to reconcile such an unrealistic situation.
The name of the Doomberg database, Terminal, says it all—this is the end. Terminal is a DOS-based grave you dig for yourself. Why in this millennium is anyone supporting a line-command OS with text in multiple col
Young Kids...Zero Leadership...No focus....Reactionary
Bloomberg is a fantastic place to work and grow, however you have to be willing to sacrifice to be successful. Social networking across the organization is the key cultural factor. If you market yourself constantly you gain favor and thrive, but if you put your nose to the grindstone and work hard you can be left behind.
Bloomberg hires a lot of kids with no real world experience. This is the downfall as senior level engineers are hard to find. So imagine coming up with solutions when you can barely tie your shoes. It creates waste and inefficiencies.
Some great things: There is always something to learn and constant training opportunities. Free snacks all day long, long work hours, flexible schedules, unlimited sick time, work from home. So many good things to talk about.
Some bad things: Lack of experience outside Bloomberg for many of the workers there. Lack of direction, lack of vision. The terminal looks and operates like a 40 year old software program and without the extreme integration of all their tools they would not be a market leader. As soon as someone comes along with a highly integrated suite of applications that was not build in the stone age they will lose market share and collapse. I have been there for a number of years and I regretted taking the job within the first 3 months.
ProsFree Food, Flexible Work hours, Unlimited Sick Days, Training
As an Equity Specialist, it was required to be knowledgeable of the equity markets and how the global financial markets would effect a clients workflow and important to know how these market changes would effect your clients business. I learned how to speed read through documents, news articles and financial statements to find the most relative information, how to type much faster with no errors to maintain efficiency and accuracy while assisting my clients. Based on client interaction and the training provided by this organization I learned a great amount of information about the financial markets and how to remain professional under pressure. The managers are intelligent, hard working and showcased superb leadership skills. The staff were also intelligent, hard working and driven. The hardest part of my role as an equity specialist was not being able to work faster and help more people at once. The most enjoyable part of my role as an equity specialist was interacting with clients on a global level, providing users with a dynamic network of information but also learning from the ideas, questions and answers received by these influential decision makers.
ProsBeautiful view of mid town Manhattan, Free Food and great company culture.
Bloomberg is more of a cult than a company. You'll be expected to dedicate yourself and your life to Michael Bloomberg and his philanthropic ventures. There's no such thing as work-life balance at Bloomberg, just work-work. While you may be scheduled to work 9 hour days (don't even think about taking a lunch break) it's more likely you'll be working 10 hour days and 11 and 12 hour days are not uncommon. For all that hard work and dedication you'll be rewarded with zero job security. Layoffs at Bloomberg are routine and apparently based on favoritism, not performance. In my group competent, intelligent, hard-working colleagues were shown the door while an individual who literally spent the day texting and on his Facebook page, took 2 hour lunch breaks and flat-out lied to us to get out of work kept his job. Bloomberg is a one-trick pony and terminal sales have peaked, accordingly I would expect the pace of layoffs to pick up . I saw a diligent, intelligent new-hire from a good university run off after 3 months because his manager took a dislike to him. In a word I would characterize the culture at Bloomberg as mean-spirited. Interesting that a man so committed to philanthropy would have so little compassion for his own employees, the very people whose hard work made his wealth possible.
Managed, maintained, and updated data in regards to the assigned companies on Bloomberg terminal.
Researched and reconciled issues in performance data
Gathered, Analyzed, and calculated London and Spanish companies’ debt obligations
Determining appropriate corporate structure and capital structure
Analyzed financial data on assigned industry sectors and companies
Reconciled debt obligations posted on company’s Bloomberg capital structure profile against current company filings
Evaluated annual and quarterly financial statements, SEC filings 10K, 10Q, and 8K reports
Researched company’s prospectus and credit agreement to balance reports
Adjusted London and Spanish companies current net debt obligation
Determined companies net obligation through financial notes, reports, and interact with specific company
Computed London and Spanish companies’ loan dual currency bonds and loans with excel formulas
Research variances and follow up with appropriate parties, such as CEO’s, CFO’s and directors of researched firms to communicate most current debt data
Reconciled actual results new N-Q reports, and explain variances
Translated financial statement in Spanish to identify and calculate net obligation
This review is for 120 Park Ave
I worked as a contractor over here for 4 months.
I was very disappointed with Bloomberg work culture.
Bloomberg needs a massive change in their work culture to create a fun work environment.
No fun at work.
Day one i was asked not to talk in my native language to my friends (Against the law). Was asked to talk in English at workplace.
No work from home allowed for consultants, whether it is a bad weather, sick and have doctor’s appointments. (Discrimination between employees and consultants)
Not social.
People are stressed, but because of the $$ they stick here.
My Advice is to create a fun environment where people will love to come to work, so that we do not think about Friday on Monday morning.
If you are a social person, trust me this is not the place for you to work. You will end up getting depressed and started having mental problems, affecting your well being. Just what happened to me.
In the end i took my decision.
Snacks and soup were good. Good luck
ProsFree Snacks
ConsVery bad work culture, no fun at work, no social, you cannot keep your personal goals going, lame work culture, no work from home for consultants(no matter what)
If you are an experienced web engineer looking to contribute your experience to a company, this is not the place for you.
This is a highly political place where your experience is dismissed in favor over empowering inexperienced developers.
The R&D department's management doesn't believe in engineering solutions proactively but more reactively in the sense that engineering decisions that were made years ago to ensure a robust solution were dismissed and only implemented years later as inexperienced engineers grew into understanding the more sophisticated side of engineering.
In other words you will grow dumber joining the team if you are already good but if you are a junior developer who is a sponge and waiting to be molded into what they need you to be then the CoolAid awaits.
R&D is not a reflection of the company's culture. Management prides itself of working to a different beat and does not embody many of the aspects of Bloomberg culture that makes Bloomberg a great company to work for. If you want to join, and you are a true engineer with experience, stay away from R&D.
ProsNice office
ConsBad management
2.0
Senior Project Manager | New York, NY | Feb 6, 2018
Workplace Operations Department
Working almost 4 years at Bloomberg, while it started great with good people in place, it quickly became apparent that it was all smoke and mirrors and nothing was what it seemed.
Bloomberg constantly preaches collaboration, transparency and innovation, but all those quality are absent in the workplace operations department. Its amazing that a company can have such good vision and invest in professionals yet it allows very bad management and unqualified personnel to lead the workplace department.
In the last 6 months of my tenure at Bloomberg, there were numerous re structures, 6 different managers and constant "new standards and procedures" town halls and department wide initiatives that were a copy and paste of previous presentations.
If this wasnt enough, we also had to endure FBI agents running through office because of corruption scandals.
While this is all happening, there was never any direction, leadership or effort to maintain talent from workplace operations leadership.
You said we would be working on municipal bonds not coping and pasting information until our eyes bleed. I was exposed to a lot of great things using excel through my coworkers. I learned a lot of valuable information about the stock market. However, you treat your temps like second class hires and it became a chore to sit next to smelly coworkers and do the same pathetic donkey work over and over again. With that being said I really like the software and its functions have profited myself in several ways. But I cannot be more serious when I say that the temps in that office are most likely going to be on contract, and underpaid, until they mess up which is bound to happen eventually. Not to mention if you keep records of the temps you can get them out the door whenever it is convenient to you. For real I hope everything goes well for this company and I hope I get to live to see the day where a person like myself can use the software in my daily work. But no doubt temporary hires are expendable and you get what you pay for.
Prosgood experience, learned a lot of tricks on excel from coworkers
Work is fine, but relationship with colleagues can be complicated
Work at Bloomberg is generally favourable.
- Work is busy but not overwhelming unless there is a shortage of manpower temporarily.
- Company culture is about being bold and taking chances but it comes down to the style of the managers of your own department.
- The company values philanthropy. I appreciate this company being committed to give back to the society.
- The company values diversity and inclusion. However, it is still a very white-dominant company. You do not see many asians at managerial positions.
- The company is still very US/NY-centric though it emphasizes to be international. A lot of resources are still only available in New York, so APAC region would need to wait for assistance from New York. Meeting hours incline to New York working hours as well.
- Relationship and communication with other employees may be the most difficult part of the job. Many people are clueless about what they are doing or they should be doing. They will just come to you and expect you will help them out no matter what.
- Training is obviously insufficient in many departments. Sometimes you would wonder how these people function properly in their roles when they are clueless about what they need to do.
- Free food at pantry which is nice.
- Compensation is competitive in the beginning but do not expect a generous raise if you are in the back office. Bonus is not attractive at all.
ProsFree food and drinks, healthcare, initial compensation
ConsInsignificant raise, Headquarters-centric, lack of training
People are fake.Sheep like culture, everyone is constantly looking over their shoulders scared of their own skins- if you perform well, you a threat to someones job-underpaid, Noyone- not even management takes responsibility when things go wrong- instead they blame each other-Horrible training program- especially around peak times( i had a 2 week training program squashed into 2 days, because nobody could care less-they had their own workflow to get through-pathetic. mundane work that does not even come close to justifying your job title as an "analyst" in any shape or form. You deal with data and data management- and thats your life, everyday. Understanding one data management tool does not develop your ability to analyze and provide value to a financial firms investment decision- many tools are utilized, you dont get exposure to this- beware to all ye aspiring investment professionals. The people i spoke to that have been their longer then 2 years say that they are stuck- you cant apply anywhere else because all you know is Bloomberg"s proprietary software package!, nevertheless it is a good first job for a 1 or an internship- looks good on your resume- even if you get to pretend to call yourself an "analyst" far too many at Bloomberg
ProsFood; good social responsibility program
ConsRemuneration; niche product; poor management; no growth as a professional; Glorified data capturer
3.0
Connectivity & Integration Solutions | London | Feb 18, 2020
A place to start your carreer and move on
Company offers plenty of opportunities for advancement especially for univeristy graduates throught the Analytics career path. After the initial "Wow!" effect wears off the place is like any other big company. The culture and dynamic depends on the department with Analytics, the biggest department in the company being extremely competitive and you should be prepared for micromanagement.
Pros:
> people of different backgrounds and interests resulting in communities from Women in technology to board games. You will find someone you get along with
> plenty of benefits like pension, events, healthcare, nice office
> good place to begin career in finance as there are plenty of resources available to develop your knowledge and collaboration with other teams allows you to develop an all-round awareness of finance
Cons:
> being a large company management is a mess where priorities can shift rapidly resulting in projects being abandoned, resources misallocated and staffing shortages
> work can be extremely stressful whether due to sheer volume, micromanagement or expectations that are set too high to impress management up the food chain. There were cases of employees being sent to rehab as a result of burnout
> your performance and value is determined based on various stats so be prepared to be a "cog in the machine"
The lifestyle itself in Hong Kong is notoriously fast pace. A typical work day for me is from 8am to 6pm and surrounded by 3 to 4 monitors at my desk. I do not complain about my hours, and in fact, I actually feel blessed compare to those who work until midnight (It happens all the time).
However, to speak the truth, I do not enjoy being surrounded by 4 monitors with fixed setting on brightness because they started hurting my eyes after staring at them for a long period of time, and I tried different ways to adjust the level of brightness but still it did not work. Yet, I grew to like having more than 2 monitors in terms of working efficiently, I love how quickly I can get my job done without switching between tabs, especially I dealt with high volume of financial data and researching in companies.
For management style, it really depends on who. Everyone has ones own belief and definition on efficiency, professionalism, style to approach individuals etc. Nonetheless, the overall style I get from them is very supportive.
Hardest part of the job is communication on internal group chats. Everyone has brilliant ideas, however, in order to glue all the pieces together does take time to 1) step back and organize and 2) rethink it thoroughly.
Most enjoyable part of the job is to get to work with many brilliant minds.
Questions And Answers about Bloomberg
What tips or advice would you give to someone interviewing at Bloomberg?
Asked Mar 23, 2017
Be on time be honest about your work experience
Answered Nov 20, 2019
Don't be nervous, if applicable speak to charity involvement.
Answered Nov 17, 2019
How are the working hours at Bloomberg?
Asked Sep 9, 2016
I work 8:30a- 4:30p.
Answered Oct 30, 2018
Hours depend upon department. Overall the firm expects you to stay and “always be on and available”. If you leave work at 6 you should not have to respond to emails at 10 PM and be on conference calls with overseas offices at that time Turned into a 24/7 job
Management expects this.
Answered Oct 10, 2018
What would you suggest Bloomberg management do to prevent others from leaving?
Asked Mar 28, 2017
I would suggest Bloomberg Management to look carefully TLs managing down their resources. Recently several employees are being let go without given reason. The decision made by Team Leaders are proven wrong. I have seen TLs benefits their own interests, rather company’s or organization overall goals. They would NOT drive and lead teams but saves their own spot and let really productive employees go. TLs are cutting more productive employee career cut short without any reason. I can bet anything, if any Bloomberg senior management is really interested and would like to discuss with me privately or confidentially.
Answered Apr 21, 2019
Look for better ways to handle mergers
Answered Oct 15, 2017
What is the interview process like at Bloomberg?
Asked Apr 13, 2017
Feel free to visit our website for more detailed information on the technical interview process: https://www.bloomberg.com/careers/technology/engineering/
Answered Jun 11, 2019
Rigorous. You'll probably have to interview with at least 4 different people before you get an offer. Good luck.
