Pros: Compared to other Computer Science job opportunities in New York City and elsewhere in the field, Bloomberg offers some pretty attractive packages. The benefits are great, the workplace is vibrant, and most coworkers are competent.

Cons: The biggest downside is that the company is divorced from Silicon Valley and its ways, making it hard for former Bloomberg employees to return to greener pastures. The projects are effectively managed by the sales organization, which is eager to please the customers. This often results in making impossible promises, rushing projects, and asking for shortcuts left and right. As a result, the code is chaotic and archaic, and in bad need of huge rewrites and lots more testing. Some of the projects are ill-conceived from the start. Several projects in my team that took months to develop received little or no use from customers. The salesperson that asked for the feature, having signed up the client, has no interest in pushing your product. Your experience varies significantly depending on who your immediate manager is. It may vary as far as the flexibility of your workday. Some managers expect you to be at work no later than 9:00, and some others recognize that the flexibility to choose, within reason, what time you come to work in the morning will affect your output.

Pros: The compensation and the transparency are the best reasons for one to work for Bloomberg L.P.

Cons: The job is monotonous and limits opportunities sometimes. A job as a financial software developer deals with creating software for financial data.

Pros: You get to take things at your pace. You want to move fast and take up complex tasks? You can. Want to lay low for a few months while working on a part-time degree? Of course you can.

Cons: No pressure. Pretty old technology. Some of the skills are not portable at all.