Nice place to collect a pay check - Software Engineer Bloomberg Employee Review

1.0
10 Aug 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Pay is high for Tokyo market. Flexible work hours. Nice place to collect a pay check so long as you keep your head down, and don't plan on fixing anything. There is also a good volunteer program, and nice office events. Handful of strong engineers to work with and learn from.

Cons

Engineering department is in late-stage bozo explosion. Inept management with poor technical skills and zero desire to fix anything unless there is an obvious way it can be used to win points with upper management... and sometimes not even then. It's mostly risk aversion: better to leave a system broken than fix it and risk exposing other broken things. You get to watch/play the blame game whenever things break, or sit in meetings and come up with a good story that leaves the team/manager/org looking innocent. I think some people call this politics. No hope for decent management as anytime there is an opening, management promotes a technically deficient individual contributor that is unlikely to upstage them by doing any meaningful work. If you try to transfer to a less dysfunctional team, your transfer might get blocked by management with some really flimsy reason given for why you weren't selected for an opening on another team - this actually happened to someone recently. HR might listen to your complaints, but they will do absolutely nothing. In the worst case, if your complaint is about a manager, they will work with that manager to make it go away. One manager was reported for sexual harassment, with zero consequences, then the same manager started hiring more and more young women, using "diversity and inclusion" as an excuse. Am expecting that #METOO moment any day now..

Explore other reviews about Bloomberg

5.0
10 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good work life balance and generous company benefits

Cons

Upside in bonus was capped low. People with wall street experiences are highly valued than those who are with the firm longer

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.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All