Been steadily going downhill, now nose diving - Software Engineer BlackRock Employee Review

2.0
Jun 24, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Depending on the group you join, you might learn a lot under a good manager, and have a great professional experience, like I had for the first several years at the company under my first manager. There are smart people. Your overall experience is kinda gonna be luck of the draw, but you could luck out. I made some really good friends there. Friendship that goes beyond the work tenure.

Cons

* Rampant H-1B abuse - they hire people who don't have the concept of break points or debugging as software engineers, often times senior positions. Those salary should've gone to US educated grad. (The competent work visa holders are the most unfortunate ones, having to do multiple the work on a fraction of the salary and stick it out for many years before they can jump ship.) * Subpar hires leading to bad practice becoming the norm - spaghetti code in production is the norm. Testing in production just became the norm. People will run scripts that bombard the company's own servers and the whole thing always end up being a blame game where people who did nothing wrong end up having to not only work more to clean up other people's messes, but also somehow take the blame for it. * This vicious loop leads to a toxic culture, of blame casting, credit stealing, and offloading work to other people. Someone will make something that's not your problem your problem, and you need to do it, not as a favor, but to atone for a bogus problem that they created for you. Management repeatedly rewards those who screw other people to get ahead. Multiple complaints to management were not only unaddressed, but furthermore, covered up, unless employees go straight to hr. * Competent people who have a choice keep leaving, and the workload gets distributed to the rest of the competent employees who can actually do the work, and they inevitably leave too. It started out as a domino effect but in the past year or so has accelerated into a snowballing phenomenon.

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5.0
Jun 23, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

Good team environment and interesting work

Cons

Long hours and slightly competitive

1
3.0
Feb 22, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1. The executive leaders in the firm are doing a great job 2. Many people in the firm genuinely have a sense of pride working there 3. The (base) compensation is compatible with the market; bonus, however, is another story. 4. For the first ten years of my career in the firm, I made some great memories and made some great friends.

Cons

The culture of my organization started to shift away from a sensible approach and career nurturing to a hostile and confrontational one around 2 years ago. In several all-hands meetings, we were chastised for being "too nice" and were made clear that things would change. The anonymous feedback in the meetings was cut short or eliminated entirely because it didn’t paint a positive picture. In the last 2 years, 1. I was often asked and expected to answer, "Now.. what can you do for me?" in my 1:1 with my latest manager. 2. I was reminded more than once that English is my second language 3. I was reminded more than once by the manager that I should not speak during the meetings I was invited to because they weren’t in the right timing or not appropriate to the subject being discussed during the time There were many of these examples in the last two years with the firm that just seemed inconceivable; nevertheless, I had a great ride and met some genuine people that I consider friends even today.

2
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