5 ms·

I always got the feeling coders/programmers/developers were second class citizens in Wall Street compared to the traders, bankers, quants etc... Why join at al

I always got the feeling coders/programmers/developers were second class citizens in Wall Street compared to the traders, bankers, quants etc... Why join at all if Silicon Valley and core tech jobs have competitive pay? What's the justification given equal hours of work/effort put on both sides.

jti107 10y ago
this is true at the traditional banks/wall street firms...but HFT firms treat their coders really well.
- melling 10y ago
  Are there any good firms in particular?
  - hendzen 10y ago
    In the HFT space, here are some big names: Tower Research Capital Hudson River Trading Jump Trading LLC Note that these firms are typically considerably more difficult to get an offer at than Google, FB, etc.
- komali2 10y ago
  That was my first question - I live with a banker and he's at work 8-8 every day including Saturday. I'm a developer and can go to work "whenever" and come home "whenever." It's a pure meritocracy - work done? Go home. Some of my coworkers come in at 11 because they surf in the morning. The point is - is it the same story for a developer working for a bank, whose bosses' boss presumably is more old-school and wouldn't be keen on hippie engineers wandering in and out of the office whenever they please?
itg 10y ago
Yes, they are derogatorily referred to as 'back office' workers at banks.
- NotSammyHagar 10y ago
  Who cares if they pay you $500k and don't ask for more than a regular work week? And treat you with respect.
  - WhitneyLand 10y ago
    Does not exist.
  - adrenalinelol 10y ago
    ^ If you know someone working sellside w/that salary + hours it's an anomaly[0]. [0] - I worked @ a BB IB
    - NotSammyHagar 10y ago
      i didn't know anyone who made 500k there, plus i'm on the west coast. i was just responding to someone up above who said it wasnt that uncommon to make that much
  - CN7R 10y ago
    > derogatorily referred to as 'back office' workers 1. That's not respect. 2. You can't assign a monetary value to respect, unless you're willing to sell yourself out.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - totalOne 10y ago
    Lol @ the idea that IT guys at Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs get paid half a stick. Many of the senior traders have mediocre academic backgrounds and no marketable skills outside of finance. Plus, they're stressed out all the time. The assholes among them will take out daily frustrations on junior employees, IT guys, and quant strategists that don't run their own risk. Lost five million today? Solution: Go red in the face and loudly berate the kid who developed your pricing model for something that isn't his fault. This is part of life at a bank. Nobody wants to admit it here because the guys here who work at BBs are generally on the receiving end of the abuse. It is not unusual to see a math PhD, who is a vice president and writes code for a living, get a very public reaming from an executive director (one rank higher) who drank his way through a bachelor's program at a lesser Ivy. Bosses don't do anything about it because they don't care and because they are beneficiaries of the pecking order. Subordinates don't do anything about it because they don't want to risk their bonus numbers.
michaelcampbell 10y ago
My experience is old, and I worked mainly in backoffice/clearance stuff, but that said... I worked for Salomon Brothers in the mid-late 90's, and they treated developers extremely well. Us backoffice guys got extraordinarily good facilities/equipment, humane working hours, a lot of freedom in tech use, etc. All for above average pay, even for NY. The trader support devs I worked around and with had it a little bit differently; their processes were much more reactive than ours, they worked under enormous pressure, and there was a lot of "less than cordial" interaction with the traders. However, they got paid quite extraordinarily, and there were never grudges held after the trading day; you could get screamed at for a few hours and go out for refreshments with the same guys a couple hours later. It was a dynamic that you had to have a certain personality to be able to handle, but no one went in there not knowing that. Just a data point.
pcsanwald 10y ago
When you work at a large financial institution in the technology division, you do have to accept the fact that you are not going to be the one making the doughnuts. working at GS, I definitely got a little bit of the feeling of being somewhat of a second class citizen, and have many former colleagues that felt the same thing. I don't say this in a complaining kind of way, more that just my job as a technologist was supporting 'the business', rather than technology being our business.
CN7R 10y ago
Then start your own investment firm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies.
SEJeff 10y ago
Virtually 100% of the top quants code. From experience, I think your feeling is a close, but a bit off. Some code more than others, some code in pairs with more experienced hardcore devs, but the best all code. HFT != Banks, Hedge Funds != Proprietary Trading Firm (aka prop shops). They are all in Finance and all could be considered "Wall Street" firms. Your feeling is akin to thinking the mean annual compensation of all of IT (including software architects in Finance) is the median salary of Junior Windows Administrators :) Source: I've worked in HFT for the past 10ish years and currently work for one of the larger futures trading firms in the US by volume.
thedufer 10y ago
I think this varies. There are places in Wall Street that don't treat their devs that way. There are also places that pay in a range that Silicon Valley doesn't really compete with. Sure, JP Morgan probably isn't in either of those categories.

jti107 10y ago

this is true at the traditional banks/wall street firms...but HFT firms treat their coders really well.

melling 10y ago
Are there any good firms in particular?
- hendzen 10y ago
  In the HFT space, here are some big names: Tower Research Capital Hudson River Trading Jump Trading LLC Note that these firms are typically considerably more difficult to get an offer at than Google, FB, etc.
komali2 10y ago
That was my first question - I live with a banker and he's at work 8-8 every day including Saturday. I'm a developer and can go to work "whenever" and come home "whenever." It's a pure meritocracy - work done? Go home. Some of my coworkers come in at 11 because they surf in the morning. The point is - is it the same story for a developer working for a bank, whose bosses' boss presumably is more old-school and wouldn't be keen on hippie engineers wandering in and out of the office whenever they please?

itg 10y ago

Yes, they are derogatorily referred to as 'back office' workers at banks.

NotSammyHagar 10y ago
Who cares if they pay you $500k and don't ask for more than a regular work week? And treat you with respect.
- WhitneyLand 10y ago
  Does not exist.
- adrenalinelol 10y ago
  ^ If you know someone working sellside w/that salary + hours it's an anomaly[0]. [0] - I worked @ a BB IB
  - NotSammyHagar 10y ago
    i didn't know anyone who made 500k there, plus i'm on the west coast. i was just responding to someone up above who said it wasnt that uncommon to make that much
- CN7R 10y ago
  > derogatorily referred to as 'back office' workers 1. That's not respect. 2. You can't assign a monetary value to respect, unless you're willing to sell yourself out.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- totalOne 10y ago
  Lol @ the idea that IT guys at Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs get paid half a stick. Many of the senior traders have mediocre academic backgrounds and no marketable skills outside of finance. Plus, they're stressed out all the time. The assholes among them will take out daily frustrations on junior employees, IT guys, and quant strategists that don't run their own risk. Lost five million today? Solution: Go red in the face and loudly berate the kid who developed your pricing model for something that isn't his fault. This is part of life at a bank. Nobody wants to admit it here because the guys here who work at BBs are generally on the receiving end of the abuse. It is not unusual to see a math PhD, who is a vice president and writes code for a living, get a very public reaming from an executive director (one rank higher) who drank his way through a bachelor's program at a lesser Ivy. Bosses don't do anything about it because they don't care and because they are beneficiaries of the pecking order. Subordinates don't do anything about it because they don't want to risk their bonus numbers.

michaelcampbell 10y ago

My experience is old, and I worked mainly in backoffice/clearance stuff, but that said... I worked for Salomon Brothers in the mid-late 90's, and they treated developers extremely well. Us backoffice guys got extraordinarily good facilities/equipment, humane working hours, a lot of freedom in tech use, etc. All for above average pay, even for NY. The trader support devs I worked around and with had it a little bit differently; their processes were much more reactive than ours, they worked under enormous pressure, and there was a lot of "less than cordial" interaction with the traders. However, they got paid quite extraordinarily, and there were never grudges held after the trading day; you could get screamed at for a few hours and go out for refreshments with the same guys a couple hours later. It was a dynamic that you had to have a certain personality to be able to handle, but no one went in there not knowing that. Just a data point.

pcsanwald 10y ago

When you work at a large financial institution in the technology division, you do have to accept the fact that you are not going to be the one making the doughnuts. working at GS, I definitely got a little bit of the feeling of being somewhat of a second class citizen, and have many former colleagues that felt the same thing. I don't say this in a complaining kind of way, more that just my job as a technologist was supporting 'the business', rather than technology being our business.

CN7R 10y ago

Then start your own investment firm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies.

SEJeff 10y ago

Virtually 100% of the top quants code. From experience, I think your feeling is a close, but a bit off. Some code more than others, some code in pairs with more experienced hardcore devs, but the best all code. HFT != Banks, Hedge Funds != Proprietary Trading Firm (aka prop shops). They are all in Finance and all could be considered "Wall Street" firms. Your feeling is akin to thinking the mean annual compensation of all of IT (including software architects in Finance) is the median salary of Junior Windows Administrators :) Source: I've worked in HFT for the past 10ish years and currently work for one of the larger futures trading firms in the US by volume.

thedufer 10y ago

I think this varies. There are places in Wall Street that don't treat their devs that way. There are also places that pay in a range that Silicon Valley doesn't really compete with. Sure, JP Morgan probably isn't in either of those categories.