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      Bridgewater Associates

      Engaged Employer

      Bridgewater Associates reviews

      3.7

      58% would recommend to a friend

      (593 total reviews)
      avatar

      Nir Bar Dea

      66% approve of CEO

      50% positive business outlook

      Ratings by demographic groups

      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
      4.0
      Nov 27, 2013

      Intense, challenging, and invigorating experience

      Investment associate
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      I'm a 22 year Investment Associate at Bridgewater-- my first job out of college. I also interned as a Management Associate during college, so have had the somewhat unique experience of operating in both roles. Pros: - In my experience, the people have been hands down the best part of the job. I'm surrounded by a group that is incredibly smart, funny, willing to work hard, be challenged and have fun. A true community. - The firm encourages "acting like an owner," and so there are real opportunities and freedom to shape things that are bad. I think this creates a pretty cool, entrepreneurial environment (despite the size of the company) - There is a huge emphasis on personal/professional development at all levels, but I can speak best to the development of young Investment and Management Associates. I had weeks of intensive training before starting my job, I'm taking an investment class that spans the entire year, and get copious feedback on all aspects of my performance. People care enough about you and your trajectory to really invest the time to help you get better. - Interesting, challenging work. Throughout their time here, people assume as much responsibility as they can handle, so there's never a dull moment. And, if you are finding your work dull, you have the freedom to explore other opportunities within the firm. - The little things rock: fully stocked kitchen, catered lunch, bussing from NYC to connecticut, gyms, beautiful offices, great benefits, business casual dress code

      Cons

      - The firm's culture calls for achieving excellence through radical honesty and transparency-- which means a lot of negative feedback. This can be really hard, and hurt sometimes. Intellectually, I think it's a good way to operate but that doesn't mean it's not a challenge. - There is very little racial or gender diversity among the Investment Associate community. The gender ratio among Investment Associates is very bad. While there are ongoing efforts to figure out why this is the case, as a woman, the atmosphere can feel very masculine and alienating at times. - The hours are long (not like investment banking, but not a 9-5 either), and the commute from NYC to Westport CT is long. Many people have two places-- one in Connecticut and one in the city for the weekends.

      5.0
      Nov 26, 2013

      Very positive experience driven by a pursuit of excellence, thoughtful people, and an unorthodox but effective culture.

      Investment associate
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      -You work with a lot of truly exceptional people (intelligent, high bar for excellence, very thoughtful, sound judgment.) This is really, really invigorating. -If you are willing to go out and get it, there is nearly an unlimited opportunity for learning. Feedback is sometimes harsh, but very often enlightening as a way to improve oneself. Quite frankly, I think people telling you things you may not want to hear but will make you better is a damned good indication that they care about you and/or your learning. -The culture is very strong and has a lot of benefits (and some issues, to be sure)... The bottom line is that without having worked here for a reasonable period of time, the culture will not make much sense because there is not sufficient context - There isn't enough space to explain it here. What I will say is that I worked at BW for 5 yrs, have reasonable professional experience elsewhere, and consider myself well-adjusted. I literally have no idea how some people can draw the conclusions that they are drawing. You'll have people calling it crazy (I am an excellent bettor, and I'd bet that the majority of those people are likely either more emotional side of the spectrum [which is totally fine, just not something BW's culture is particularly tailored to], stubborn, or are just bitter because they were fired), which I think is a pretty unfair assessment and highly unlikely to be true given how effective the culture has been at (a) retaining a large number of employees that lasted past 12 months and (b) generated excellent investment outcomes for decades. -The company parties are really fun. The company goes all out, the event planning team is awesome, the younger employees aren't afraid to let loose, and even the more experienced people enjoy a good social atmosphere. The peak of fun was 2007-2009, but I think the social scene is still fairly vibrant. -The benefits and perks are certainly north of market.

      Cons

      -There are very, very, very few influential investment decision-makers (let's say 4-5 inner circle, and 5 more right outside that). That's it. If anyone says otherwise, they're lying. The bar for being one of these people is exceptionally high, and the path to get there is ill-defined and quite frankly, involves a fair bit of randomness (honestly, you need to be exceptionally sharp and conceptually gifted, but there is a right-place, right-time element to it.) If this is what you want to be, you're fighting an uphill battle. There are other rewarding roles at BW, but don't expect a seat at the table. Plus, as the cream has risen to the top in the last few years, there is just a much smaller probability of getting to these roles. -Compensation-wise, they certainly pay less than other hedge funds (their A-players get paid handsomely relative to everyone else, but even the A-level is less than other smaller shops), but at BW's size and with it's structure (analyst don't have their own books, P&L, or even individual investment ideas), that should be expected. With that being said, they pay well, but I certainly would not put it in the "pros" as others have. This comment applies only to investment professionals, as that is the only thing I have context for. -Work/Life balance is tricky. People work hard, but the experience is all-encompassing. Most of my friends were BW people. I didn't mind this, but over time, it became tough to escape work. People liked their jobs generally, but there were ups and downs. Social dinners involved talking about work ups and downs. People knew how to talk to each other in the parlance that BWers often used. The culture is great, but it is so hilariously easy to make fun of, so we did that too while we simultaneously appreciated it's value. Like I said, a positive thing for me, but perhaps a negative for some. Work is also really tough and intense usually, so I'd come home with my brain mush. It was tough, but rewarding.

      4.0
      Nov 25, 2013

      Can be great, but definitely not for everyone

      Senior investment associate
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      -Extremely smart, interesting people; I can say from first hand experience that the people here are a significant cut above other "top tier" companies or grad schools on this dimension -Always being challenged (can be a pro and a con), since everything is held to a very rigorous level of logic and there's a huge focus on figuring out the best answer -Huge investment in training and development for Investment Associates -Find out things about yourself that you wouldn't in other environments (could be a pro or a con). At Bridgewater, everything is "personal" in that everything important ultimately has something to do with someone(s) who failed or succeeded at something. And we scrutinize those things to improve. -Close-knit culture, especially among the Investment Associates but it's true generally - people here are friends and family, not just colleagues -Rapidly changing company, across many dimensions - particularly management and leadership. So there's a lot of opportunity to have impact (though there's a flipside in that lots of change makes things more chaotic)

      Cons

      -Always being challenged - nothing is easy. Even small things that may not be that important are focused on. Lots of reinventing the wheel -Still working out the management challenges around future leadership transition, things are changing rapidly and somewhat chaotic - e.g. lots of turnover in senior managers -A bit of decision paralysis - too much decision-making is done by a handful of senior leaders who become a bottleneck. Middle management is mostly not empowered (some exceptions) -Sometimes the culture can be exhausting - it takes a lot of energy to have difficult conversations about mistakes and what people are like, their strengths and weaknesses, at the level of depth and frequency that we do here -Location. Westport is ~2 hours door-to-door travel if you live in downtown Manhattan -Some areas of poor training and onboarding. Investment Associate training is great, but a lot of the rest still hasn't been worked out well

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      ReviewsBridgewater Associates 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.