C++ and javascript coding on your favourite amber and black color schemed terminal - Financial Software Developer Bloomberg Employee Review

2.0
3 Oct 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The FSD training class will teach you what you need to know about Bloomberg's proprietary technologies. Good opportunity for somebody straight out of uni, who knows C++ to a reasonable but not expert level. For those with a few years experience, getting the same pay and going through the same class is less appealing. Bloomberg's RAPID enviroment and BAS framework are easy to use and quick to develop new features on. Bloomberg work you hard but the satisfaction you get from getting a lot of work done can be addictive. Free snacks and drinks in the pantry is also a plus. Lavish summer parties. Nice new "lunch room".

Cons

Bloomberg are focused on being first to market with new features which means pressure and deadlines and a big tradeoff against writing good quality code. Business guys can be aggressive and look through you, and not enough time is given to planning or design. Compile and linking against all of Bloomberg's dependent libraries takes ages and sometimes fails. The architecture is somewhat dated due to this, plus the presence of legacy fortran code. Outages affecting development occur too frequently. You can befriend training colleagues but most people keep themselves to themselves. The initial training class requires a lot of work and staying late and has an 80% pass mark. Working hours 8am to 6pm or 9pm to 7pm.

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5.0
7 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

People you work with are great

Cons

Linear growth not much opportunity outside of department

5.0
31 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Only a five-hour-per-week time commitment, which is very manageable with my class schedule. Bloomberg provides ideas for challenges and activities to host at my school, so I would not have to come up with everything from scratch. There is flexibility to choose when I table and to tailor the role around my schedule.

Cons

The budget for the program is tight, which is frustrating because advertising to law students is exactly how Bloomberg Law builds a dedicated user base. In my opinion, whoever makes the budget is not seeing the bigger vision. A lot of attorneys may not like Bloomberg Law, use it regularly, or ask their firms to purchase a subscription simply because they were never meaningfully exposed to it in law school. This is exactly why Lexis has taken over in such a big way: its presence and budget are felt at law schools across the country. If Bloomberg wants future attorneys to become loyal users, it needs to invest more seriously in reaching students while they are still learning which legal research platforms they prefer.

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