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Bridgewater Associates

Engaged Employer

Bridgewater Associates reviews

3.7

58% would recommend to a friend

(593 total reviews)
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Nir Bar Dea

66% approve of CEO

50% positive business outlook

Bridgewater Associates has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 593 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Bridgewater Associates employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Financial Services industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

593 reviews
2.0
Oct 19, 2016

Great for some, awful for most

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

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.

1.0
Oct 16, 2016

Manager

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

BW used to pay well over the premium and ends up with a lot the nice and smart people (less than 20%, the other 80% are people who made their careers on poitical BS). I do hear there is an end to it and BW is cutting costs, including the pay.

Cons

This was the single worst place where I have accomplished NOTHING (and it is not the show about NOTHING either). There is a smell of fresh BS every time you get on the meeting and somebody calls out some of the principles, to either stall you or protect their turf or simply, score political points. There are so many stories that I cannot write about, from high-level managers building their cases about team-members, to losing money, projects that deliver nothing after 3 years (like tech renovation or trading), clueless people just playing culture card, etc. Ray is somewhat crazy, compares him self to Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, just completely out of reality. He proclaimed that his system of collecting the data about employees (dots) is the greatest gift man-kind in history (delusional) while all there is, is a source of people losing their hours looking at "feedback" provided bu other people. Every day. Only graduates, right out of school and not seeing anything else, could call this place a great company to work for. Not because they are bad kids, they just have not seen anything else.

1.0
Oct 6, 2016

Finance

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Benefits free healthcare insurance lunch and dinner

Cons

All lies. The preach that it's not political but it's very political and the management uses principles to turn on people and push people out. No job security, bunch of brainwashed lemmings, snaky co-workers, big brother watching environment, micro managed at all level. Not worth the slightly higher than market pay. Limited growth opportunity. They hide sexual harassment and offsite frat behaviors. Company is no longer the great that is was and doesn't hold the value it did on the street.

Viewing 376 - 378 of 593 Reviews

Glassdoor has 679 Bridgewater Associates reviews submitted anonymously by Bridgewater Associates employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Bridgewater Associates is right for you.