Investment Internships and Full-time Roles
Bridgewater is one of the largest, most successful hedge funds of all-time, founded in 1975. We’ve built a unique understanding of global economies and financial markets used to generate high and uncorrelated returns (alpha) in systematic investment strategies.
We are looking to hire great talent for our Investment Associate roles. Does the following sound like you?
Our Investment Associates (IAs) are the core team focused on developing and delivering alpha—the unique insights that enable us to beat markets and generate high and uncorrelated returns. Our approach is rooted in a fundamental understanding of the drivers of economies and markets and the systemization of those ideas. Our Investment Associates are:
- Relentlessly, obsessively curious. To beat markets, you must have unique insight—but markets are always learning. We need individuals fiercely driven to understand how the world works, uncovering new logical relationships, testing and exploring new data sources, and consistently trying to expand their understanding and constantly improve.
- Deeply independent—bordering on iconoclastic—thinkers. For decades, Bridgewater has been studying markets and economies and reflecting our best understanding in our investment systems. We need independent-minded individuals who will come in and tell us why what we’re doing and thinking is wrong—and be right about it.
- Conceptual and analytical. We need people who are both excited by the challenge of taking abstract concepts and translating them into quantifiable measures in a systematic investment process.
- Able to draw insights from a wide variety of backgrounds. Our investment approach draws from multiple disciplines—most obviously economics and finance—but also computer science, mathematics, statistics, political science, history, natural science, and more. To that end, our Investment Associates come from a wide variety of backgrounds.
- Collaborative and tenacious. Our culture of idea meritocracy requires constant, intensive collaboration and exploration of ideas. Grit is essential—many of the problems we try to solve don’t have immediate or clear answers and wrestling through to the truth alongside others takes enormous perseverance.
What can I expect in an Investment Associate summer internship?
Our goal is to provide interns with real and meaningful exposure to a fundamental and systematic investment process. As Investment Associates, we live and breathe markets and want our interns to have the chance to do the same. We hate the concept of “busy work” and try to make the internship as real of a window as possible. From the first week on, you’ll be expected to form your own macroeconomic and market views—including the opportunity to bet with your intern compensation and enter “positions” in actual markets Bridgewater trades, where Bridgewater will take the other side, using our in-house Investor Track Record tool. The internship is structured around the same components as Bridgewater’s research and investment process—you’ll start by looking out at the world and perceiving the most important dynamics for investors related to a specific economy and market. You’ll then synthesize your key views. Finally, you’ll get exposure to systemization—taking your point-in-time views and working with our investors to translate the core logic into data and mathematical expressions that you can then stress-test through time.
Throughout the internship, you’ll also receive world-class markets and macroeconomic training via an abridged version of our first-year Investment Associate class. This will cover the foundational frameworks, introduction to analytical methods we use in our research, and some light exposure to our technology stack. Our training ecosystem is designed so that anyone willing to put in the work can get the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the internship and get a taste of what it’s like to be a real macro investor.
Interested in Learning More?
- Apply for our 2025 Investment Associate Internship—Applications will open in Q1 2025.
- Get in the game: Bridgewater and Metaculus, a leading forecasting technology platform, will be hosting our second annual Forecasting Contest in early 2025. The competition is open to anyone who shares our organizations’ mutual passion for understanding the world through data, technology, and research, and using that understanding to make informed predictions about the future. You can sign up here to be the first to know when entries for the competition open.
- Class of 2027? Applications for our Investment Immersion Program open in October. Our annual Immersion Program brings second-year college students onsite to Bridgewater’s campus. This three-day event is designed to give students exposure to Bridgewater’s unique culture, our fundamental and systematic approach to understanding how the world works, and a deep dive into our internship programs.
- We also always love meeting smart people, even if they are unsure of whether Bridgewater is for them and which role is the best fit. You can drop a resume here if you’d like to learn more.