Bloomberg L.P. Reviews

I have been working at Bloomberg L.P. full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Very fast pace company. Perfect for go-getters. Salaries are competitive with good benefits. People are friendly. You interactive with many people through out the day. There is never a dull moment. Free sodas and snacks.

Cons – Work load is crazy. Most people are overworked.

Advice to Senior Management – Do only the important things instead of trying to do everything

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Bloomberg L.P.

Pros – They pay you a lot

Cons – Too much work and too much pressure

I have been working at Bloomberg L.P.

Pros – It is good to work at Bloomberg New York City. The culture is good and people there is nice.

Cons – No free lunch and dinner

I have been working at Bloomberg L.P. full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – -Work with latest technology
-Opportunities to get MBA & Cisco/Juniper/Linux certifications
-50% match on 401K
-Good health & dental package
-Since 2007 raises & bonuses have been a joke
-Good company name to have on your resume
-Good vacation days after 10 years

Cons – -Terminal sales dead last two years and bonuses & raises are below inflation.
-Management more interested in hiring from outside rather than promoting from within
-Any promotions are usually political, if you are friendly with Bloomberg or the COO.
-Metrics flawed, judging talent on SDSK (ticket system) updates alone creates people who are good at updating their tickets - no one rewarded for going "above & beyond".
-Lots of senior employees get transferred to an undesirable department (usually entry level like GTEC or GCUS) to get the senior employees to quit rather than fire them.
-Newer employees (3 years experience) often chosen for management roles over senior employees (7-15 years). It seems like once the new guys get more chances than the established veterans.
-It is very hard to advance in the company management unless someone likes you. The same people in middle management get rotated around to new roles and its hard to break in.

Advice to Senior Management – Bloomberg used to be a meritocracy. Work hard & you were rewarded. Meritocracy died when "certain people" took over and embraced metrics. Metrics are good to weed out the good from the bad, but you aren't rewarding employees who are going above the call of duty. Bloomberg paid for top level talent, paying more than the average company for above average talent. What happened to that philosophy? Allow team leaders more flexibility in rewarding those employees that are working their butts off - and when raises are below 3% you aren't going to get employees motivated to work more than they are expected.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Bloomberg L.P. full-time

Pros – decent healthcare, talented, dedicated people

Cons – management opportunities are geared towards men, managers who "kiss up, kick down" advance the fastest, little respect for "work/life balance", no transparency in hiring and promotions, no unions allowed

Advice to Senior Management – women are assets

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Bloomberg L.P. full-time for less than a year

Pros – Job security, learn some new things everyday if active, looks good on resume, free pantry, some nice and some very clever people.

Majority of the jobs are, as somebody said, "middle class sweat shop" -type. They don't want any innovative thinking or world class abilities, and the jobs are pretty boring as is. Instead, you are supposed to keep your mouth shut, and run the outdated day-to-day process for less money than industry median managed by relatively incompetent management. Awesome option for people who search for a safe 9-5 day care, as B does not normally lay people off.

Cons – Poor salary, skills not transferable, many team leads are either inexperienced and/or not very bright, weak communication skills, normal 60-hour weeks are not justified due to low salary.

The data jobs rely on non-transparent performance metrics and subjective manager evaluation, although transparency is one of the core values at B. Same applies to career prospects - there is no long term alignment of interest so that you would know that dedication and hard work will be compensated. Rather, you are offered horizontal repositioning to another same level job. Further, B is not a meritocracy - tenure over skills and abilities - which means that opportunity cost regarding staying at B for long term is far too high.

In the beg. I did not mind about terminal being outdated. After a while though, it is frustrating that workflows are unnecessarily complex, buggy, user unfriendly, and 70% of your time you are working with menial tasks caused by these weak workflows. It helps if you are a 90's MS-DOS freak, as that is how the workflows still look like.

Majority of the managers and team leads have mediocre skills/abilities or are outright dumb. Many employees have spent far too long at B, have lost touch with the changed labor market and/or industry, and are unable to recognize needed improvements even if served on a golden plate. Most employees have built their professional identity on the B's workflows, and unable to recognize or understand skills that new hires are bringing in from outside. They also have a major chip on the shoulder in case a new hire knows more, and you will be shot down really fast by telling how you don't know this and that workflow yet, as you have just started.

Advice to Senior Management – - Been working at B for a less than a year and I am resentful already. Why?
- Entire corporate culture is outdated. The world does not work top down anymore.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Bloomberg L.P.

Pros – Great code base to learn from.

Cons – Some of the in house software are out dated

Advice to Senior Management – Accept newer technology more readily

I have been working at Bloomberg L.P. full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Fast paced environment, lots of different teams to choose from that give you a nice blend of technology and finance.

Cons – Career growth. It's non existant. It is a flat company. I would love to stay indefinitely if there was room for career growth.

Advice to Senior Management – Create more job titles that actually compensate you for your work. For such a transparent company, its very discrete when it comes to career/compensation growth.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Bloomberg L.P. full-time

Pros – The pay and benefits are above average.

Cons – Heavy-handed top-down management damages morale.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to employees

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Bloomberg L.P. full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Lots of knowledgeable people and team leaders who are willing to help you improve. Room for growth. Despite layoffs a few years ago, company is generally pretty stable. Salary is above average, and access to free snacks and refreshments is a nice perk. Very nice office building too.

Cons – The working environment is sometimes pretty stressful, and you may feel pressured to work even harder than you already are. Workdays can be long!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend