Job Application for Research Associate, Fiscal and Trade Policy at Bridgewater Associates

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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 Alpha Engine

Our core mission as an organization is to understand the fundamental drivers of markets and turn that understanding into high-quality portfolios and investment advice for our clients. We do this in three critical ways: by being fundamental, systematic, and diversified. We seek to understand the economy in a fundamental way, uncovering the timeless and universal cause-and-effect linkages that drive global markets. That understanding is implemented systematically and converted into explicit rules that can be rigorously stress-tested. Finally, we create highly diversified portfolios that are not dependent on any one source of return and can survive a wide range of economic environments.

About the Geopolitics and Policy Team

Our Geopolitics and Policy team is responsible for understanding policy as a driver of economies and markets around the world. The team conducts rigorous research to evolve our fundamental understanding of fiscal policy, trade policy, regulation and geopolitical developments, and incorporates insights about these cause-and-effect linkages into Bridgewater’s systematic investment process.

About Your Role 

We are seeking a Research Associate to join the Geopolitics and Policy team and play a critical role in overseeing the impact of government policy on economies around the world and maintaining and improving the systems we use to quantitatively evaluate those effects.

You will drive the following responsibilities:

Provide coverage of key countries’ government policies, monitoring and synthesizing developments such as elections, budgets, tariffs, and regulatory changes.
Perform day-to-day oversight of our systematic measures of the impact of trade and fiscal policy on economies and markets, ensuring reliability and accuracy of outputs.
Maintain and make operational improvements to our government policy systems.
Collaborate closely with senior investors and teammates to update our indicators in response to policy changes and political developments.

Interested in learning more about working at Bridgewater? Hear about the experiences of our employees here.

You'll Be a Click for the Role If:

You are motivated by making sense of global developments and enjoy working at the intersection of government policy, macroeconomics and markets.
You bring a combination of technical ability and ability to understand and synthesize fundamental economic linkages, and want to grow at the intersection of both.
You can balance reliable execution (maintaining the inputs to our systems) with analytical curiosity (unpacking more ambiguous policy dynamics and working through how to systematically capture those impacts).
You thrive in collaborative environments, partnering closely with senior investors and teammates to produce high-quality outputs.
You’re comfortable learning quickly, asking thoughtful questions, and creating structure in areas that are complex or ambiguous.

Position Requirements 

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

1–2 years of experience in a technical and/or analytical role (finance, consulting, research, data science, economics, or equivalent)
Strong coding/technical skills (e.g., Python, R, or other analytical programming languages)
Bachelor’s degree with a strong academic and extracurricular track record
Demonstrated interest in macroeconomics, markets, and government policy
Strong problem-solving skills and ability to break down complex questions into clear, analytical approaches

Physical Requirements 

The anticipated onsite requirement for this role is four days per week at our New York City campus.

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. 

Compensation Band
The wage range for this role is $120,000 - $190,000 inclusive of base salary and discretionary target bonus. The expected base salary for this role is between 80% - 90% 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.

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 provide immigration sponsorship for this position. 

Bridgewater Associates, LP is an Equal Opportunity Employer  

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Research Associate, Fiscal and Trade Policy

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