Pros: The FSD training class will teach you what you need to know about Bloomberg's proprietary technologies. It's a good opportunity for somebody straight out of uni who knows C++ to a reasonable but not expert level. For those with a few years of experience, getting the same pay and going through the same class is less appealing. Bloomberg's RAPID environment 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 is 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. Compiling 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: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 9 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Pros: A lot of good people to work with, technically talented and diverse. A lot of interesting problems to solve in finance and technology (although this will vary by the team you're on - derivatives in my case). Compensation and benefits are pretty good.

Cons: For someone interested in working in finance, it can be a bit stifling since FSDs tend to get a bit roughshod into their technical roles.

Pros: Very good compensation, good health insurance plan, free snacks and soda, and breakfast.

Cons: 1. There's no career growth at all. There's too much political stuff in this company. I've seen many people who don't contribute more than others on the team but get promoted to team leader or manager, just because they have good personal relationships with their boss. 2. It's not very professional in terms of software development. Bloomberg hires a lot of non-professionals to do the software development. Many people never or seldom developed software before they joined this company. So, there's a lot of poor code waiting for you to maintain and fix.