Middle & Back Office Specialist - Bridgewater Associates

About Bridgewater

Bridgewater Associates is a premier asset management firm, focused on delivering unique insight and partnership for the most sophisticated global institutional investors.

Our investment process is driven by a tireless pursuit to understand how the world's markets and economies work — using cutting edge technology to validate and execute on timeless and universal investment principles. Founded in 1975, we are a community of independent thinkers who share a commitment for excellence.

By fostering a culture of openness, transparency, and inclusion, we strive to unlock the most complex questions in investment strategy, management, and corporate culture.

Our Culture

Bridgewater's unique success is the direct result of our unique way of being. We want an idea meritocracy in which meaningful work and meaningful relationships are pursued through radical truth and radical transparency. We require people to be extremely open, air disagreements, test each other's logic, and view discovering mistakes and weaknesses as a good thing that leads to improvement and innovation. It is by continually striving together for the highest levels of truth and excellence that we create meaningful work and meaningful relationships. Within this culture, Diversity and Inclusion is a top priority because it is essential to finding the best talent in the world, enabling our idea meritocracy, and creating an environment where all types of people can thrive. We have a full-time team as well as affinity networks that work on these issues - If you would like to learn more, please let your Bridgewater recruiter know.

About the Middle & Back Office Department

The goal of the Middle and Back Office Department is to enable Bridgewater's ongoing investment engine and client requirements by proactively driving solutions through effective management of people, process, partners and solutions in a principled way. Overall responsibilities include:

• Providing trade life cycle and portfolio control support (e.g. trade confirmation, collateral, reconciliation)
• Providing investor and fund services (e.g. on/off-boarding of investors & various investor and regulatory reporting)
• Ensuring accurate accounting books and records and associated reporting (e.g. NAV)
• Liaising with Audit, Tax, and Compliance to ensure compliance with ongoing regulatory requirements for BW, it's funds and clients
• Driving industry leading back-office solutions and engaging in thought leadership and strategic partnerships with internal and external stakeholders to shape key outcomes (e.g., BW Front Office, vendors)

Bridgewater has grown rapidly in recent years, transforming from an investment boutique to a leading global institutional asset manager. To manage this excellently, Bridgewater has placed explicit focus on evolving our world-class investment and support infrastructure inclusive of utilizing external partners for key processes.  Since Operations processes are mission-critical, the department has evolved the way in which it meets its goals and responsibilities.  Bridgewater now operates a unique and innovative "tri-party model" that enables us to remain responsible for investment management and oversight of our back office, while also taking advantage of the independent processes and technology of two strategic partners who are industry leaders in this space. 

About the Role:

The Middle & Back Office Specialist in Operations is comprised of (1) monitoring and managing the deliverables and performance of outsource providers, (2) operating internal processes and procedures and (3) improving and evolving both (e.g. participating in initiatives enabling support of new products, markets and unique investor requirements, enhancing processes and controls, etc.).

One of the key advantages of this role as compared to a traditional Operations role is that our Specialists are developed more as "generalists" who can understand the end-to-end processes of all aspects of Operations, as opposed to being specialists in just one particular product or process.

We are seeking motivated, agile and results-oriented people to be part of the team critical to enabling Bridgewater to implement new investment ideas rapidly and meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of our clients. 

You will drive the following responsibilities:

• Provide Quality Control oversight of Outsource partners to ensure mission-critical Operations responsibilities are met including excellent escalating and troubleshooting of problems
• Produce various internal and external reporting, including but not limited to client, regulatory, risk & control and management metrics
• Act as liaison between outsource partner(s) and internal BW departments (e.g. trading, client service) for queries and on various projects and initiatives
• Identify problems and inefficiencies with various process and develop and implement solutions (e.g. streamline redundant processes, automate controls & reports, etc)
• Contribute towards training, testing, and certification of other Associates over time to ensure a high level of cross-training and fungibility

We are looking for candidates with the following minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree, demonstrating a strong academic record from a competitive school
• 2-7 years' experience in financial services Operations and/or Investor Services (e.g. investment banking, hedge fund administration, hedge fund, investment bank setting or consulting firm (Operations specific consulting)
• Strong skills in relevant software applications, particularly Excel, SharePoint, PowerPoint. Data manipulation and coding skills are also valuable (e.g. pivot tables, macros, Power Query, VBA, SQL, "R", etc)
• Strong sense of personal responsibility, ownership mentality, reliability, results-orientation
• Excellent ability to detect and trouble-shoot problems, logical reasoning, and common sense
• Process orientation (ability to both follow and streamline machines)
• Strong Communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to hold others accountable
• Learning agility and flexibility to keep up with what can be an uncertain and/or changing environment

Physical Requirements

This role will follow a hybrid schedule, with an onsite requirement of four days per week at our Westport CT campus.

Wage Range

The wage range for this role is $110,000 - $245,000 inclusive of base salary and discretionary target bonus. The expected base salary for this role is between 80% - 90% of this wage range.

Why Choose Bridgewater?

It takes all types to make Bridgewater great. We seek a diverse group of innovative thinkers and push them to engage in rigorous and thoughtful inquiry. We develop people through an honest examination of their abilities and performance, enabling personal growth and professional development. We strive to provide you opportunities that will challenge you and unlock your potential.

One of our core priorities at Bridgewater is to enable our employees to build a great life and career, and we believe our benefits are an important extension of that philosophy. As such, currently Bridgewater offers a competitive suite of benefits.

Explore more information about Bridgewater's benefits on our website here.

Bridgewater reserves the right to change its current benefits program at any time, in a manner that is consistent with applicable federal and state regulations.

This job description is not a contract and confers no contractual rights, privileges, or benefits on any applicant or potential applicant. Bridgewater has the right to change any and all terms of this job description, including, but not limited to, job responsibilities, qualifications and benefits. Nothing in this job description constitutes an offer or guarantee of employment. Please note that we do not provide immigration sponsorship for this position.

Bridgewater Associates, LP is an Equal Opportunity Employer