We've negotiated many Bloomberg offers this year. Don't leave $100K+ on the table.
Bloomberg is open to negotiating and willing to engage if you share cross-offer details. However, Bloomberg's compensation structure is fundamentally different than most companies in tech, and they are not able to provide large enough increases to match some of the top paying companies. It is at a more established stage (i.e. not in hyper growth mode anymore) which does make it harder to negotiate to top of band.
- Base Salary
- Bloomberg Signing Bonus (not included in all Bloomberg offer packages and might be split over two years)
- Annual Bonus
There is no Bloomberg equity package, which is relatively unique for a tech company as most offer shares to employees to create an ownership mentality and align incentives.
Bloomberg's annual bonus depends on the role, level, personal performance, and company performance. Bloomberg has rewarded top performers with +50% above target bonus, which is certainly competitive (albeit, lower than the 2x and 3x that are theoretically possible at companies like Facebook). Bonus targets are negotiable and quoted as a $ figure - again, this is different from a typical structure. Software engineer targets range $10K-$50K and senior software engineer is $35K-$90K.
Bloomberg is known to place a heavy emphasis on in-office collaboration. They are aiming to transition to a hybrid model where tech employees will be coming into the office 3 days a week and for the remaining 2 days they work from home. As a result, Bloomberg does not look to favourably upon remote workers and fully remote positions are relatively rare at the company.
It's worth noting that Bloomberg has also faced significant backlash from employees during covid for premature return to work policies.
If Bloomberg requires to move to join a specific team, they usually offer a 10k bonus post-tax for new grads. In case of senior levels, you should push for a higher bonus. It's also possible to negotiate for additional relocation perks (e.g. 2 months of corporate housing).
At many tech companies, the most negotiable component is equity, but Bloomberg does not offer that as a part of the overall Bloomberg compensation package. Hence, your best bet is to negotiate the total compensation (i.e. base + target bonus). It is worthwhile to also push for a signing bonus, though these are almost always <$50K which will not make as large of impact compared to a $30K/yearly increase in comp.
Bloomberg does not require written offers in most cases but they will ask for other details.
Some recruiters will also require you to completely finish other processes before negotiating, which is a bit unusual. That said, if you're very specific with your wording, you can certainly still negotiate while in the interview stage at other companies.
Bloomberg has a hard time going above band when you present them with a competing offer. Recruiters are comfortable saying "we aren't able to pay as well as Google/Amazon" and that can make negotiations tricky. However, that does not mean that they will not increase comp if you play your cards right. It's just not a sure thing if you are nearing top of band. Due to Bloomberg's unique leveling structure, it's usually not possible to push for an uplevel to increase comp when at top of band.
Bloomberg salaries are decided by a compensation team, and the hiring manager relationship is less important vs. at a company like Amazon.
Recruiters also do not have much control over your compensation, but it is still essential to have a good relationship with them, as they will be the ones advocating on your behalf for special approvals.
The hiring process at Bloomberg typically has four stages: initial recruiter chat (optional), phone coding screen, virtual onsite, and offer stage. There may be a few changes in the process depending on the role, but this is the general format.
The initial recruiter chat is to learn a bit about your background and why you are interested in Bloomberg.
The phone screen is typically two Leetcode questions.
The onsite stage is usually three rounds with two interviews more focused on coding/system design and one behavioural interview.
If you are successful, you'll typically get an email from your recruiter asking for a follow up call and then the Bloomberg offer negotiation process will begin.
Bloomberg doesn't have a great comparable company due to their unique comp structure. They are known to have a solid engineering hiring bar and many people also receive offers from Amazon, Microsoft, etc.
As a point of comparison, Amazon pays much better vs. Bloomberg. For instance, at Bloomberg the highest offers for senior software engineers are around $350k but at Amazon L6 can clear $600K.
While negotiating at Bloomberg, the focus should always be base pay, target bonus, and signing bonus. However, they provide other benefits as well. This includes health benefits such as vision and dental insurance, financial perks like 401k, FSA, Roth 401k and miscellaneous perks like tuition reimbursement, employee credits and discounts, etc.
Software Engineer
Senior Software Engineer
Equivalent Level at Google
L3
Between L4 and L6
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Bloomberg
has a unique set of negotiation policies. If you don’t have experience negotiating with them, you risk losing out on large amounts of money because of very small mistakes.
There are many of these rules you need to know to get the highest
Bloomberg
offer possible