Is Bridgewater Associates a good company to work for?

Bridgewater Associates has an overall rating of 3.7 out of 5, based on over 679 reviews left anonymously by employees. This rating has been stable over the past 12 months. 58% of employees would recommend working at Bridgewater Associates to a friend and 50% have a positive outlook for the business. The best reviews about Bridgewater Associates have been left by employees working as Manager , Project Manager and Management Associate .

Does Bridgewater Associates pay their employees well?

According to anonymously submitted Glassdoor reviews, Bridgewater Associates employees rate their compensation and benefits as 3.8 out of 5. Find out more about salaries and benefits at Bridgewater Associates. This rating has been stable over the past 12 months.

How satisfied are employees working at Bridgewater Associates?

58% of Bridgewater Associates employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews . Employees also rated Bridgewater Associates 3.1 out of 5 for work life balance, 3.2 for culture and values and 3.4 for career opportunities.

What are the top reviewed jobs at Bridgewater Associates?

Investment Associate (36) , Management Associate (19) , Administrative Assistant (18) , Associate (17) , Project Manager (14) , Manager (10) , Technology Associate (10) , Intern (9) , Investment Associate Intern (9) , Analyst (7) , Senior Associate (7) , Investment Engineer (6) , Management Support Associate (6) , Program Manager (6) , Senior Management Associate (6)

What are the pros of working at Bridgewater Associates according to real employee reviews?

"smart people and generally the quality of conversation is an order of magnitude better than other places I have worked at." ((in 153 reviews)); "Benefits are great." ((in 65 reviews)); "Free food (but who cares besides kids out of college?)" ((in 27 reviews)); "good compensation and bright / interesting people" ((in 24 reviews)); "Good salary and pay bonuses" ((in 17 reviews))

What are the cons of working at Bridgewater Associates according to real employee reviews?

"Culture is not for everyone and is hard to get used to." ((in 80 reviews)); "No work life balance" ((in 25 reviews)); "Long hours and highly stressed but you know this going into the firm" ((in 18 reviews)); "Poor management." ((in 16 reviews)); "Managers are afraid of doing anything for fear of being issue logged and found at fault." ((in 15 reviews))

What are employees saying about Bridgewater Associates layoffs in 2026?

Explore Glassdoor’s employee reviews to understand what current and former employees are saying about Bridgewater Associates layoffs and their outlook for job security at Bridgewater Associates in 2026.

What are the top reviewed Bridgewater Associates locations?

Westport , New York , Bridgeport , Stamford , Wilton , Norwalk , Greenwich , Point Pleasant Beach , Westport , Binghamton , Long Island City , Detroit , Charlotte , Houston , Charleston , Knoxville , Carmel , Fairfield , New Canaan , Ridgefield , Waterbury , Kirkland , Seattle , Baltimore , Cambridge , Nowhere , United States Coast Guard - Air Station Sacramento

Bridgewater Associates reviews

3.7

58% would recommend to a friend

(593 total reviews)

Nir Bar Dea

66% approve of CEO

50% positive business outlook

Company ratings over time

Ratings trend for the last 6 months (593 reviews)

Ratings by demographic groups

Race / Ethnicity

Gender

Sexual orientation

Disability

Parent or family caregiver

Veteran status

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

1.0

Oct 11, 2014

Career in the hole, non-compete crazy, culture/cult is suffocating

Technology associate

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

- You can learn about yourself but it comes at high price and mostly just confirms what you knew about yourself - Free food, gym (not sure tihs is any pro ...)

Cons

- Your progress in any professional way is brought to a halt - Though claiming to be meritocracy, it is very subtle political environment - Amount of procrastinating is UN-believable, for example you can spend talking 30 minutes of your 30 minutes meeting talking about what is the goal of your meeting and whether makes sense (true story !) - Non-compete is UN-bearable, they are now stopping everybody from leaving to other financials - Technology is 10-12 years old - Members of Management Committee (MC) are nodders and Ray-pleasers who see it as opportunity to get shares and be secured for life - Ray keeps saying he is retired and literally makes all the decisions

4.0

Sep 29, 2014

I had a very fruitful learning and cultural experience

Anonymous employee

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Great, fundamental understanding of concepts Empathy of the employees Intelligent, Interesting people Great implementation of transparency and feedback mechanism

Cons

Little quantitative sophistication A little dogmatic on some aspects of the culture Some senior leaders are too egocentric

2.0

Sep 23, 2014

You're going to either like or leave really fast

Administrative assistant

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

- People are all great humans - I'd rather hang out with Bridgewater people than most of my actual friends. They are also really smart - basically 0% chance I go anywhere else in the world where people are on aggregate smarter than they are at bwater. - Benefit of the culture, you always know where you stand with everyone - there's no BS, there's no talking behind people's backs, etc. Great camaraderie among the people there, although occasionally someone will be sacrificed in the name of the principles. - people are generally really good at their jobs there or they leave. So there's probably less crap to put up with than at other places in that respect - great place to learn a lot about yourself, how you think, how you like to work/operate, etc. Free candy everywhere. If you like candy you are going to love Bridgewater. - Great parties, company events, all that stuff. Fun atmosphere

Cons

- lots of company related homework/chores to do that have little to do with the actual doing of your job - really high turnover - as my friend said, "it's hard to get the meaningful relationships part of the 'meaningful work/meaningful relationships' tagline they use if they keep firing all my friends." - principles/culture probably started out organic and great, but they're being instituted across the company in ways that are clunky and can be ludicrously bureaucratic - the culture is great but pervasive to such an extent that people over think doing pretty basic stuff - imagine spending days trying to set up a meeting and then Lord Dalio spends half of the allotted time haranguing someone over how he phrased a sentence. That kind of stuff happens way too often... lots of time wasted for low value conversations. But then again he also has 15 billion more dollars than me so what do I know. - people help each other out less - really long hours for everyone - I basically - it's in CT, the worst state in the union

Viewing 487 - 489 of 593 Reviews

Jobs at Bridgewater Associates

Associate, Product Structuring