Bridgewater Associates Employee Reviews about "work life balance"

Pros

great perks -free lunch, snacks food and compensation is higher than norm

Cons

no work life balance, if you don’t drink the kool-aid (culture) you are out. Way too many thinkers and not enough doers.

Pros

Culture, friends, compensation, parties are great

Cons

Culture, working with people can be difficult, decisions are slow, work-life balance

Pros

Everyone's voice is heard. Praise and criticism are given freely. Free lunch, snacks, drinks, dinner if you work past 7pm, onsite gym/showers and fun team building events.

Cons

Criticism is given too freely. Expected to work 10+ hours a day, work life balance is non-existant.

Advice to Management

Value your subordinates more. Turnover is high, and would not be if everyone felt important not just department heads.

Pros

BW is dog years of learning. You’re challenged intellectually and supported by incredible people who are deeply invested in your growth. BW is very much a place where the sky is the limit and the possibilities for your career are what you make of them. Through hard work, curiosity, and openness to learning, you can grow within the organization and take on more responsibility rapidly and will consistently be pushed and...

Cons

For me, I was commuting from quite a distance to CT, which became too much on the work / life balance scale.

Pros

The learning. I'm surrounded by smart, talented people who challenge me, and invest heavily in my personal development. I see real progress in my ability to structure/solve problems and communicate with senior mgmt. I equate many of my experiences to a practical business degree. The culture. Yes, a culture of transparency & accountability can feel intense, but for me, the many benefits far outweigh any cons. I'm encouraged...

Cons

I commute from NYC to CT, which ultimately impacts my work/life balance. But this is my choice, and is more than justified by what I'm gaining from the experience. The firm is at important point in its story (i.e., the institutionalization of a boutique, founder-led firm). Rapid growth over the years has led to a lot of organizational inefficiency, redundancy, & waste. Senior...

Advice to Management

Continue to focus on what's most important.

Pros

Pay, Benefits, Amazing ℅-workers, free lunch and snacks, quality friendships. The promise of speaking your mind, holding people accountable, asking questions.

Cons

Min 50 hrs a/week, no work/life balance, under daily intense pressure and stress, outdated technology - excel over used, large turn over, constantly training newbies or taking on the workload of those that management deems below the bar. Losing your job is always just around the corner. Money making departments (employees - bonuses) favored over non-profit support or back...

Advice to Management

The high turnover is ridiculous - it's a strain on moral, inefficient on workloads and work flow. Invest in technology to make working and getting things done easier.

Pros

Learn about yourself, learn to think better and more efficiently, ability to work lots of overtime

Cons

work life balance, easy to get fired if your not a superstar in your role

Advice to Management

n/a

Pros

Ray's Principles aligned really well with the way I think, and I still believe in operating the way that I did while at Bridgewater. I was surrounded by brilliant people who constantly challenged my thinking down to the core of who I was, and helped to shape me and improve it. The perks and benefits were fantastic from health insurance coverage to lunch and snack provided with fully stocked kitchens.

Cons

There was a great deal of expectation around acting like an owner for your role, yet it felt like they didn't treat you like an owner. There was also a heavy emphasis on believability. The concept makes sense, where your opinion on something is taken into account only as much as you are a beliveable and reliable subject matter expert. For instance, I was an admin, so my believability on many things was fairly low compared...

Advice to Management

See the cons above. The biggest challenge I experienced there, as did other former employees, was moving up in the company. Many have done it, but they seem to be the ones who came on board very early on before the company became too big.