Pros: Great compensation and benefits, excellent, driven, talented co-workers. If you find finance and software fascinating, it would be hard to find a better match.

Cons: The environment can be stressful at times due to the push to get things to production quickly. Global financial markets operate constantly, 24/7 (or almost), and you can be on call at any time.

Pros: Fast-paced work; dull moments are rare. But that's because... (see "Cons").

Cons: Bad programmers abound. The emphasis is on rolling out software that's quickly written and does its job, with no concern for software standards. I'm amazed how much untested software is rolled out to customers every week. Customers are used for testing. Very political atmosphere. Top management encourages competition between different teams, resulting in a vitiated atmosphere. Company has grown very big and is dragged in different directions. Core product ("The Terminal") has hit a plateau, and things will be difficult unless radical innovations happen.

Pros: Pay is good. Business is slowing down now, but even during the financial crisis, I got pretty good pay and bonuses. A lot of my coworkers quit and work for Google, and they're getting less vacation and about the same salary. Good benefits. Four weeks vacation, good medical and dental insurance (used to be free, but now it's $400 a year or so), and other perks like free entrance to museums and occasional tickets to high-society type events through the company's philanthropy. Nice office in a nice location, with beautiful tropical fish and free snacks.

Cons: The technologies they are using are outdated and mostly proprietary. You can become an expert in those technologies, and it will make you more valuable to Bloomberg, but not to anyone else. Perhaps not if you work in a few groups (mobile, bloomberg.com, Bloomberg Government) which use mainstream technologies, but the vast majority of programmers are working on the Bloomberg Terminal, which doesn't really use any modern, marketable technology. Good job security has a price: there are a lot of really bad programmers who break things or never get any work done, and they never get fired. Depending on your team, you could work with smart people, but you might also work with a lot of dumb people. Hours can be long, and you're pretty much expected to be on-call 24/7, ready to log in and debug issues at 4 AM when the London market opens. It's a global business, but most software teams are only in New York, and in some teams, you can get woken up very frequently to fix overseas issues.