Bloomberg reviews

4.0

78% would recommend to a friend

(8,240 total reviews)
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Michael R. Bloomberg and Vlad Kliatchko

84% approve of CEO

73% positive business outlook

Bloomberg has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 8,240 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 Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

8K reviews
1.0
Jun 25, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Flexible hours, open kitchen in Skillman office (do not trust people who says it is “free food” – it is part of your compensation. Company estimates that they spent $4600 annually on you and now even mention it in annual compensation statement. But they should be given credit for liberating you from your weekly grocery shopping and a task of finding something to eat in your empty fridge when you are late for the work), great place to start your carrier when you are just out from college and cannot find a job ANYWHERE because no one needs your business major and, let’s face it, you learned nothing in college, annual summer parties that are actually are not so great as they used to be when company was smaller

Cons

Your immediate manager has no idea what he/she is asking you to do. Majority of team leaders got to their warm seats through internal politics, who-likes-whom, who-sucks-whom, est. That “majority” will make every effort to be the first when something is wrong but the last in there is success. There is no business plan, no one looks at the head counts or time budgets, you will receive absurd requests with unrealistic targets and forget about 40 hours work week. At the same time you cannot officially work extra - you cannot work on Sat/Sun but "find time during your day". The same is about your “outstanding” peers – good honest people who really know the stuff are either already left or looking to leave shortly, except for those few poor souls who cannot move for external reasons. Those praised by TL’s are really working their tail off to get out to other department and will have no problems to eat you, if you are seems to be a potential competition. You will experience capitalism there at its best. And it is not my subjective opinion – the fact is that out of those people whom I started with not long time ago, only 7% are still with the Team. I didn’t hear if anyone is sorry about leaving/losing Bloomberg. Think about it

1.0
Feb 14, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Free Food, Flexible work hours(if you do not work in trading systems),Corporate Perks, Health Benefits package

Cons

Backstabbing, Managers behave like dictators with no accountability throughout the chain of command, outright lies on performance reviews,performance is proportional to psychophancy, culture of meritocracy and fairness being systematically dismantled, basically a H-1B sweatshop, blame the person you don't like instead of the real culprit and get him/her fired.

1.0
Jul 28, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-The company has a phenomenal public image, you tell people "I work for Bloomberg" and you get a lot of "ooh's" and "aah's". -There are literally tons of extras -- free food and drink, financial market related training, cultural events, a summer party that obviously cost a bomb, a building with GORGEOUS common areas. -An unheard of fully financed benefit plan that is pretty comprehensive (medical, dental, vision at NO cost to you AT ALL). -No dress code for anybody that doesn't deal directly (face to face) with customers. -Coworkers (not management, but coworkers) are very well screened prior to hiring, and I've never worked along side people this smart anywhere in the past.

Cons

-A incongruous maze of workflow management tools that are ineffective and self defeating due to their inadequacies which the company compensates for with added bureaucracy and ill-thought-out policies rather than changing the system they concocted and implemented with home grown software. -Managers are often abusive towards subordinates both systemically as well as interpersonally and such behavior is tolerated and almost seems encouraged. -Managers are often promoted/selected on the basis of who has been there the longest and not in consideration of any actual ability to manage or lead. -Programmers are permitted to behave in defensive and accusatory ways towards systems and internal-end-users whenever questions about their product arise. -Employees at large are often treated as though they are attempting to take advantage of the company and policies are issued from senior management that are both heavy handed as well as indicative of a general distrust of the average rank-and-file employee. -The technology here is old hat, and there are a lot of in-house solutions that won't help you acquire skills that are at all portable in the marketplace. -Expectations of herculean efforts are common place and the hero mentality is prevalent; working 50, 60, 70 etc... hours per work is considered to be the sign of a good, great, incredible, etc... employee. -The method used to actually gauge an employee's value to the company, and in turn determine their compensation, is highly subjective and usually left to a team leader who is frequently biased. -Review process does not allow an employee to respond to or refute any claim of underperforming or failing to meet goals -- these claims can and do affect the final review and in turn compensation. -It is common place for the rank and file in R&D to be kept in the dark about upcoming projects and changes/additions to the overall technical environment until it is their turn to "do X" and even then said employee is still clueless about what is going on. -The company does not encourage learning about the industry in operates in. Training is made available through "Bloomberg University" (aka BU), but at no point does the company encourage or require an employee to learn anything about what the financial services industry is or how it works. -Policies are applied to R&D, if not the firm, in a blanket fashion; but it is not uncommon for these policies to be contrary to the common good of selected groups that must now adhere to such rules. -Some groups within R&D have little to no accountability and create customer impacting outages with impunity while other groups are near crucified for even the smallest ripple in the end user's Bloomberg Terminal experience.

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