Trading Associate
Bridgewater · Westport · $165,000–$190,000 (stated in the posting)
About the 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
As a Trading Associate, you will execute trades, generate and evaluate ideas for how to make better trading decisions, and collaborate with strategists and technologists to constantly improve our processes, focusing on improving the implementation of our logic or increasing efficiency.
- Through extensive on-desk formal training and on-the-job informal instruction, TAs become well-versed in Bridgewater’s trade execution strategies, the logic used to implement our strategies, and the production systems used to facilitate our logic.
- Once trained, our TAs carry out the core responsibilities of our department, including implementing our desired exposures, developing a distinct view of the outside world through close interaction with the markets, and driving the evolution of our execution strategy.
- Traders at BW do not have discretion in their trading and do not “manage a book” – instead, traders execute our desired exposures using a systematic set of rules developed by our team and strive to improve those rules by developing a world-class understanding of markets.
- This team is based in CT and trades global markets. Trading shifts may vary, but typical shifts include coverage during Asian, European, or New York market hours.
- A deep sense of intellectual curiosity will be needed to fuel your ability to deepen our understanding of ever-changing market structure and to drive the evolution of our systematic process.
This is a fully on-site role (5 days/week), and this employee will work from our office in Westport, CT.
You will drive the following responsibilities:
- Executing Bridgewater’s desired exposures according to our systematic, proprietary processes
- Contributing to Bridgewater’s understanding of market microstructure, transaction costs, market participants, and products in the markets
- Working with technologists and researchers to construct new investment implementation systems and execution strategies or overhaul old ones
- Driving initiatives to improve the quality, reliability, and efficiency of the systems you own
- Developing and maintaining strong relationships with our liquidity providers and external vendors
- Work together with our analytics team to oversee our transaction costs and execution outcomes
- Traders may perform some engineering work to evolve our strategies and system logic and to conduct analysis.
You will be a click for the role if you:
- Are analytical, highly logical, and structured in your thinking
- Have excellent communication skills and can interact with counterparties and colleagues clearly and effectively
- Thrive in a fast-paced environment
- Are comfortable working nontraditional hours to implement our trades in Asia and European markets, and are excited about having a unique position at the nucleus of BW’s trading activity through close interaction with the markets
- Are deeply interested in understanding financial markets, market structure, and game theory
- Can think critically about outcomes and transform perceptions into strategic changes
- Have a knack for automation and naturally seek ways to improve processes
- Hold a high degree of personal responsibility and ownership in everything you do
In addition, to succeed within our unique culture and work environment, individuals must demonstrate humility, innate curiosity, and openness to new ideas and approaches. Candidates must be driven, confident, and goal-oriented. All Bridgewater employees are expected to be honest, exceptionally direct, and eager to provide and receive objective feedback. Our employees constantly strive for self-improvement through feedback and self-reflection and are committed to the pursuit of excellence.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Possess a BA/BS (or are on track to graduate in 2026-2027), with a quality academic record, from an accredited undergraduate institution
About Bridgewater
Bridgewater Associates is a global macro investment firm, founded in 1975, whose mission is to develop a fundamental, cause-and-effect understanding of how markets and economies work—and translate that understanding into insights, returns, and solutions that help the world’s leading institutional investors solve their most important investment challenges.
Over five decades, we have codified our fundamental understanding into a systematic investment process—integrating human judgment with machine intelligence with the goal of applying our thinking consistently, testing it against reality, and continuously improving decision-making over time. We believe this has created a unique platform for applying AI within our process, positioning us at the frontier of integrating technology with investment decision-making.
In financial markets—where reality is constantly evolving and outcomes are uncertain—sustained excellence requires continuous learning and improvement. Our culture—anchored in radical truth and transparency—helps us learn faster.
Find more information about Bridgewater on our website.
Our Culture
Bridgewater’s culture is anchored in the pursuit of excellence—tied directly to our mission. In financial markets, where the base case is failure and reality is constantly evolving, winning requires continuous learning and improvement. Truth is our most essential tool for improvement, and transparency helps us get closer to truth because it places many eyes on our decisions, problems, and mistakes. By understanding reality clearly, we can identify the gap between where we are and where we want to be—and use that knowledge to learn and get better. Our system that supports this way of being is an idea meritocracy, where we commit to finding and rewarding the best ideas regardless of hierarchy.
Operating in these ways is hard. Finding truth and learning through it is inherently a high-friction cycle. It’s possible because we share a few core values: a commitment to honesty, high ownership, deeply meaningful work and relationships, and building Bridgewater as a big tent where vast differences are welcomed. These values create the common denominator that binds us together in good times and bad.
Benefits
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, including health insurance, retirement benefits, paid leave, and other fringe benefits. Find more information about Bridgewater’s benefits on our website.
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.
Sponsorship
Please note that we do not provide immigration sponsorship for this position.
Compensation
The wage range for this role is $165,000 - $190,000 inclusive of base salary and discretionary target bonus. The expected base salary for this role is between 70%-80% of this wage range.
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.
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.
Bridgewater Associates, LP is an Equal Opportunity Employer