Bridgewater Associates Employee Reviews about "work life balance"
Updated Nov 3, 2021
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Found 39 of over 533 reviews
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Top Review Highlights by Sentiment
- "smart people and generally the quality of conversation is an order of magnitude better than other places I have worked at." (in 123 reviews)
- "Managers are afraid of doing anything for fear of being issue logged and found at fault." (in 16 reviews)
Ratings by Demographics
This rating reflects the overall rating of Bridgewater Associates and is not affected by filters.
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Reviews about "work life balance"
Return to all Reviews- Former Employee, less than 1 year★★★★★
Pros
smart co workers ambitious asf
Cons
company doesnt has a good work life balance
Continue reading - Former Employee★★★★★
Pros
Various pros: Lots of independence, consistent feedback, free lunch/snacks, great brand name recognition for CV, excellent compensation, ridiculously intelligent co-workers, high-pressure situations can be incredibly rewarding if you can tolerate the pain. The bottom line for BW is that the firm encourages far more reflection and introspection than other firms do. If you work there, you will learn a lot about yourself and will undoubtedly get better at whatever you are employed to do.
Cons
Work/life balance can be nonexistent- partially due to the firm's location so far away from NYC and partially due to the demands of the job. The hours are not terrible for most people, but the pace at which you will work during the day will far exceed any other job you will have. Incredibly high turnover (over 50% per 18 months now), which definitely erodes team cohesion and morale. The culture attempts to get rid of office politics, but it ended up creating a tedious bureaucracy that can make it difficult to get things done (though there are several instances of the opposite being true). Although this varies by department, the culture can be highly abusive and there were countless instances of people behaving in ways that would get them admonished or fired at any other firm. The sheer amount of 'culture' work, such as management training, polls and feedback, can be cumbersome and exhausting, particularly if you a ton of work to get through.
Continue reading - Current Employee★★★★★
Pros
- Very Competetive Salary - Excellent transparecy - Great environment for personal development and growth - Incredibly intelligent people throughout the organization - Culturally rich
Cons
- Not for people who have thin skin and can't deal with critisicm - Potentially hard to keep a good work/life balance - Some technology is antiquated
- Former Employee, more than 1 year★★★★★
Pros
Great benefits Catered lunches Company events
Cons
Work life balance Company culture extremely stressful
- Former Temporary Employee★★★★★
Pros
Life work balance is good
Cons
Nice place to get experience
- Former Employee★★★★★
A social experiment, don't join unless you are emotionally stable, really smart, and are up for a wild ride.
RecommendCEO ApprovalBusiness OutlookPros
Smart people, good salary, good benefits, perks like lunch, gym and parties Opportunities to move within company can be good. You will find awesome people there. Principles are great in theory and give a good framework of thinking about problems and common management issues. Will push you to be at your best, testing your intellect and mental fortitude. Best opportunities for success and happiness are far away from the departments where the founder is involved
Cons
Parties and 'team bonding' events get excessive- forced bonding with co-workers to 'build community' takes even more time away from family and friends outside of work. Managers are expected to attend and it is viewed negatively if managers do not attend. Poor work life balance Parties get out of hand, and no-one really cares... kind of like 'Mad Men' in how it operates. Men who are complained about are minimally disciplined, if at all, and excuses made for them. Forced bell curve on performance, requires constant culling of employees. Managers know this and need to plan for it, if you aren't in charge of who gets in the bottom 30% you are 75% more likely to be in there. It becomes a chess game of managers keeping their jobs and 'sorting people.' Highly successful people aren't good enough. You are labeled within 3 months of your arrival, and if the picture wasn't pretty to them, by whatever algorithm that they are using this week to assess you, it will never be pretty and you will never come out from under any label you get there... It will be on your 'baseball card' and follow you to any role for the rest of your career there. Reckless assessment and testing practices, using personality and workplace assessments in ways that they were never intended to be interpreted by people with zero training resulting in hiring and firing decisions as well as opinions of people that are unfounded - rampant confirmation bias. Everyone is compared to the founder and his heir apparent, so if your results are different from them, you are in the red and scores are lower. No perceived value in diversity of thinking, approach, etc. Constant failure and revolving door of Senior Executive team and department heads is depressing... If you can't communicate in their language, good luck uttering a full sentence without being interrupted and negative feedback being recorded for you in their assessment system. No effort to understand one another. Most people just trying to survive by attacking rather than being attacked. Principles are great in theory, but can be manipulated to support whatever theory the better debater needs. And, if something happens that requires Ray to do something he doesn't want to, to stay in line with his own principles and values, he'll just write a new one to justify what he does. The worst part is that Management and the company pretend to be different from every other corporate environment and they fool lots of people who end up being blindsided. Real truth is that they are just as political, scheming, back stabbing and pushing of their own agendas as any other financial institution, but they are full of arrogance and hubris that they are somehow better and more elevated than people at those other companies. Its just all the harder to figure out who you can trust there. You are being watched -- 100% of the time--Through your badges, cameras, computer activity, blackberry, more cameras and all formal conversations are audio-taped. You are encouraged to report on other employees, preferably publicly, but anonymously is OK too and they'll give you lots of ways to do that.
Continue reading - Former Employee★★★★★
Pros
The benefits are top of the line across the board Generally fair compensation
Cons
Potentially poor work life balance
- Former Employee★★★★★
Pros
Culture is stimulating and you meet a lot of great people
Cons
Work life balance can be difficult
- Former Employee, more than 1 year★★★★★
Pros
Very intellectually challenging work environment with incredibly intelligent people. It's an amazing place to grow and learn, but be prepared to pushed to your limit. People who succeed are very well compensated.
Cons
It's hard to have great work/life balance in that work will creep into every aspect of your life. Really not so bad if you have realistic expectations. Be honest with yourself about whether or not the culture described seems like a good fit to you. I think Bridgewater does a pretty good job presenting it's culture - but people truly need to determine if it is right for them before taking a job.
- Former Employee★★★★★
Pros
Great benefits, wicked smart people.
Cons
Poor work life balance [self imposed IMO]
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