Bloomberg LP

Awesome gold-plated benefits and office.

Some interesting problems exist in some groups. However, it is completely dependent on the group.

Good summer party.

Generally smart colleagues who are nice to work with.

Generally meritocratic.

When the benefits and colleagues are the high point of your day, something is wrong with the work.

With the exception of a few groups, chances are you will be working on an ancient software stack where the focus is to do a paint job and ship features as soon as possible.

Not only is R&D management aware of this, the senior-most managers actively evangelize paint jobs and to leave the rotting guts alone. This goes against every engineer's basic instincts.

Industry standard software practices such as unit testing, high availability, integration testing, and quality control are verbally supported but not practically espoused in the over-arching Time-To-Market company motto.

As an engineer, if you make peace with the fact that this is not a software company or a tech company by a long shot, you will be happy. Unfortunately, that also means that your skills deteriorate over time, and with my shift to a startup, I had to face an exceedingly steep learning curve.

With all the myths propagated by management that compensation is top-notch, it is not. It is above average but not in the league of software companies offering equity.

I left to join a small startup and got pretty much what I was making and some equity.

Hmmm, management... need I say more?

All the reviews talk of terrible management, and it is true.

As an engineer, you will not be treated as a professional but as an untrustworthy resource that needs to be constantly monitored.

This is reflected in their recent inability to hire engineers to fill open positions.

None. Management is made up of old-school finance types who are quite insular. Moreover, the company is still insanely profitable. Ergo, the thinking goes, management must be doing something right, and they really don't need any advice.