Data Sourcing & Strategy Associate

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 to 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.   

Explore more information about Bridgewater on our website here.

Our Culture

Our culture is anchored in excellence, meaning constant improvement, and it is deeply tied to our mission. Because markets are objective, competitive, and getting smarter everyday, we need to keep rapidly improving to have any chance of beating them. Truth is our most essential tool for engaging with the markets and constantly improving because once you know what's true about your problems and opportunities, you can determine how to get better. Valuing truth means being transparent about your decision-making and mistakes, giving and receiving feedback with humility, and fighting for the best answers over hierarchy, ego, or self-interest. Operating this way is hard – it's only possible because we build meaning in our work and relationships. This meaning comes from the audacity of the mission, and the joy of working alongside people who make you a better version of yourself. The culture, like Bridgewater itself, is always evolving. In 1997 our founder Ray Dalio wrote down his lessons, starting with a Philosophy Statement which remains our foundation. This later evolved into a set of 300+ Principles. In 2022, when Ray transitioned the company, we re-underwrote several of those principles and evolved others, with a specific focus on Meritocracy. Today the culture sits, alongside our people, as our most important edge. When we get it right, it’s the engine that powers everything else.

About the Investment Implementation Department  
The Investment Implementation department is a community of diverse investment professionals whose mission is to implement our investment strategies and client portfolios excellently. Our Department is responsible for ensuring the excellent implementation of our systematic investment approach, from raw data to executed trades, with processes and logic that reflect the full richness of our investment insight, executed with a near-zero error rate, and engineered and orchestrated in a way that facilitates oversight and compounding. This is an investment department, owning the investment outcomes, and the mandate includes both the ‘run’ responsibility and the ‘transform’ responsibility, meaning daily operations as well as over time renovation of our systems. 
We fulfill our mission by applying four operating principles:

• Understand and deliver internal client needs. Partner with our internal clients to understand, offer implementation designs, and deliver solutions, while proactively educating and communicating outcomes to ACLs (Asset Class Leads) and CIOs.  
• Own our investment intent. Own our investment intent in full, in letter and spirit.    
• Continuously improve. Have and evolve an investment pipeline to meet current and future internal client needs.    
• Systematically and relentlessly deliver quality outcomes. Apply our best logic systematically, discipline, expertise, and controls to every signal, position, and trade in every market

About Your Role

In this role, you will be an integral part of the Data Strategy and Acquisition function within our Investment Implementation group. Operating at the front edge of our Investment Data practice,you will assist, learn, and contribute to the evolution of our Relationship Management, Supplier Knowledge Management,  and Service Management administration disciplines. You will engage with investors, associates, engineers, and external vendors and providers to drive strong outside-in and inside-out knowledge, quality management, and business process alignment.

You will be a central part of our Research and Data Strategy functionimmersed in the middle of our flows, investment questions, supplier challenges, matching ideation, internal marketing/advocacy, and service strategy. You will regularly communicate your understanding and assessments to a diverse group of stakeholders, including investment professionals, vendors and service providers, Management, Compliance, Legal, and Finance. You will partner across the firm and with vendors (existing and prospective), collaborating with hundreds of individuals (with potential to over one thousand) over the course of a year.

You will drive the following responsibilities:

• Activating, advocating, executing, and assisting in the systems, sourcing, supply chains, and internal demand we use to provide and maintain inbound fuel and internal investment asks of the practice. 
• Dynamically understanding the world of offerings, known and unknown to Bridgewater, creating potential matches, indications of interest, and bringing structure from the external world into Bridgewater. 
• Understanding and effectively communicating the state of specific pieces and slices of the sourcing portfolio, including market making and matching, as well as knowledge bases of passes, no bids, and deferred opportunities. 
• Assisting in the building, maintenance, and rapid sorting of inbound and run-state assets within the sourcing portfolio. 
• Engaging as we rapidly introduce a ML/AI aspect to our Research and Data world discovery process designed from first principles.
• Creating and assisting in initiatives to improve the quality, reliability, and efficiency of the systems you own or are part of. 
• Continuously evaluating and enhancing processes for sourcing, vetting, and delivering content to investment professionals, Data/AI scientists and processes at scale. 
• Advocating with existing and potential vendors to improve the quality of their pitches. 

You will be a fit for the role if you:

• Are curious, practical, analytical, and willing to engage broadly with a highly diverse set of people and processes both inside and outside of Bridgewater. 
• Able to manage a high volume of work across diverse functions and competing priorities, while effectively communicating and executing. 
• Are deeply interested in understanding our Investment Data practice and its lifecycle management. 
• Think in terms of systems and naturally look for ways to solve problems through the evolution of those systems. 
• Hold a high degree of personal responsibility and ownership in everything you do. 
• Are willing to operate at all levels of the stack, from basic task execution to complex, multi-month and multi-modal efforts. 

In this role, you will grow with us by:

• Undergoing a rigorous training program that includes structured engagement with the external world, on-the-job apprenticeship, and working with highly experienced colleagues. 
• Actively contributing to the growth and evolution of the broader overall design. 
• Having your voice and perspective heard, and over time representing the firm in important vendor, counterparty, and provider management discussions. 
• Pursuing opportunities to grow your career across Bridgewater based on your strengths, areas for development, and experience

Minimum Qualifications

• 4-year degree from an accredited undergraduate institution
• 3-7 years of relevant work experience at an investment bank, vendor/service provider or asset management firm
• Experience in at least two of the following: Relationship Management, Service Management, or Supplier Knowledge Management
• Experience with Capital Markets market data is a strong plus
• Quantitative methods familiarity is a plus

Physical Requirements

The anticipated onsite requirement for this role is three days per week at our Westport, CT campus and one day per week at our NYC campus.

Compensation Band

The wage range for this role is $170,000-$225,000 inclusive of base salary and discretionary target bonus. The expected base salary for this role is between 70%-80% 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 with 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