Finance Associate, Accounting

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.   

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.  

Explore more information about Bridgewater’s culture on our website here.  

The Finance Department  

Finance leads Bridgewater’s financial strategy and serves as a strategic advisor to businesses across the firm. We partner with leaders to translate strategy into financially sound plans, evaluate growth opportunities, and make informed decisions about how to allocate capital. Our work builds financial resilience and drives long-term shareholder value, supported by rigorous analysis, reporting, and controls. We are also transforming how Finance operates, using AI and automation to deliver faster insights and focus more of our expertise on the decisions that shape the firm’s future. 

About the role 

As a Finance Associate, Accounting, you will be a member of Bridgewater’s Corporate Accounting team responsible for the various responsibilities outlined below. You will develop a diversified skill set and breadth of knowledge that are highly valued across the Finance Department. 

You will drive the following responsibilities:  

• Support the Corporate Accounting team with fulfilling monthly close deliverables 
• Prepare financial information for internal stakeholders 
• Manage various aspects of the financial audit, which will involve direct interaction with the external auditors as well as with other areas within the Bridgewater organization 
• Responsible for the execution of accounting processes over various balance sheet accounts 
• Support ad hoc requests as necessary 
• Process and controls improvement: 
• Proactively explore how process change and technology can streamline our operational accounting and strengthen our control environment — critically evaluating our existing internal processes to find where they are manual, fragile or redundant, and assessing potential external tools and solutions 
• Build the case for the changes worth making and see them through from idea to implementation, partnering with stakeholders across Finance and with our technology and vendor teams 

You will be a click for the role if you: 

• Possess an exceptional ownership mentality, willing to roll up your sleeves and problem solve 
• Show strong critical thinking skills, with a natural curiosity to ask “why” and question the status quo 
• Have a genuine appetite for rethinking how the work gets done — questioning processes and tools and pushing for better, better-controlled ways to account and report, rather than settling for incremental tweaks 
• Enjoy making sense out of white-space and ambiguous situations 
• Think analytically, logically and agilely; can quickly iterate in a fast-paced environment and high-performance culture 
• Excel at relationship building across stakeholders at all levels of the company 
• Possess excellent independent thinking, ask questions and take the initiative to improve current processes and metrics 
• Are highly organized, reliable and detail oriented, with an eye for spotting and correcting errors 
• Use AI fluently in your work while bringing enough technical depth of your own to review its output for accuracy and completeness 

We are looking for candidates with the following minimum qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in accounting, with a strong academic track record 
• 1-3 years of accounting or audit experience; Big 4 accounting firm background a strong plus 
• CPA, or actively working toward the certification 
• Advanced Excel skills 
• Experience working with AI tooling, paired with the subject matter expertise to review AI-generated output for accuracy and completeness (we currently use Claude, though our tooling may change over time) 
• Experience with other financial systems such as Workday, Office Connect, and Workiva 

Physical Requirements 

The onsite requirement for this role is four days per week at our Westport, CT campus. 

Compensation 

The wage range for this role is $120,000 - $165,000 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.   

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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