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Yeah not really, many HFs will match that 400k, but many will not. I have received a few offers from these quant funds, the offers have been good, but nothing I

Yeah not really, many HFs will match that 400k, but many will not. I have received a few offers from these quant funds, the offers have been good, but nothing I couldnt get working in tech. My understanding is that the average finance professional makes less than or equal to tech, but the top 1 - 5% of finance easily make 7 figures.

zjaffee 9y ago
How large do you think that population of people in finance making 6 figures is in raw numbers? When you compare that to the tech industry, there are certainly high level engineers and managers that make 7 figure salaries all things included (especially given the growth in stock price at certain companies).
- vasilipupkin 9y ago
  "How large do you think that population of people in finance making 6 figures is in raw numbers?" you mean 7 figures? if you are a top engineer in finance with many years of experience, you are likely making close to 7 figures.
naturalgradient 9y ago
Ah that matches what I have heard. HFT/HF is paying up but overall, as someone who is coming up on making the decision, it's hard to see the upsides of finance. Losing all visibility/ability to publish/being a first class contributor and not second class dev..
- corporateslave6 9y ago
  I wouldnt get into HFT, its commoditized. The future of finance is in processing huge volume (internet scale) unstructured data and analyzing it in real time. HFT of website data if you will, right now we are in the infancy
  - shortoncash 9y ago
    HFT has matured. But, I agree, finding alpha through alternative means at internet scale has been around for at least a decade, but things are getting more interesting now.
vostok 9y ago
> My understanding is that the average finance professional makes less than or equal to tech, but the top 1 - 5% of finance easily make 7 figures. This is more or less true, but an interesting thing to think about is that the number of people (with technical backgrounds) making 7 figures in financial firms is smaller than the number of people making 7 figures in technology firms. This is probably obvious to you if you work in finance, but I think most outsiders don't realize that. If you include people with sales backgrounds like investment bankers then the numbers might shift in favor of finance.
- vasilipupkin 9y ago
  are you sure? how likely is it that an engineer in a technology firm makes 7 figures? I mean what sort of position do you need to have to get there?
  - vostok 9y ago
    I'm not sure how to answer the question. How would you answer the equivalent question about finance? It's not like working in finance guarantees you 7 figures. I know plenty of people on both the engineering side and the trading side who never made more than 2-300k. If you want specific examples from tech then the Waymo article from a while back is helpful, but that doesn't mean that you need to work at Waymo or Google to get there, although a large portion of those roles are at Google-tier companies. Your average agency will not be hiring pure developers and paying them 7 figures, although they might to someone who is generating revenue and bringing in enough business to justify it.
    - vasilipupkin 9y ago
      the op made a claim so I am assuming the op knows how to answer this question. The claim is that many more engineers make 7 figures in tech than in finance. My question, specifically, is, what fraction of engineers in tech make 7 figures, let's say what fraction of engineers with 10 years experience and what are the types of positions at those google tier companies that pay this much. I think this is pretty specific

zjaffee 9y ago

How large do you think that population of people in finance making 6 figures is in raw numbers? When you compare that to the tech industry, there are certainly high level engineers and managers that make 7 figure salaries all things included (especially given the growth in stock price at certain companies).

vasilipupkin 9y ago
"How large do you think that population of people in finance making 6 figures is in raw numbers?" you mean 7 figures? if you are a top engineer in finance with many years of experience, you are likely making close to 7 figures.

naturalgradient 9y ago

Ah that matches what I have heard. HFT/HF is paying up but overall, as someone who is coming up on making the decision, it's hard to see the upsides of finance. Losing all visibility/ability to publish/being a first class contributor and not second class dev..

corporateslave6 9y ago
I wouldnt get into HFT, its commoditized. The future of finance is in processing huge volume (internet scale) unstructured data and analyzing it in real time. HFT of website data if you will, right now we are in the infancy
- shortoncash 9y ago
  HFT has matured. But, I agree, finding alpha through alternative means at internet scale has been around for at least a decade, but things are getting more interesting now.

vostok 9y ago

> My understanding is that the average finance professional makes less than or equal to tech, but the top 1 - 5% of finance easily make 7 figures. This is more or less true, but an interesting thing to think about is that the number of people (with technical backgrounds) making 7 figures in financial firms is smaller than the number of people making 7 figures in technology firms. This is probably obvious to you if you work in finance, but I think most outsiders don't realize that. If you include people with sales backgrounds like investment bankers then the numbers might shift in favor of finance.

vasilipupkin 9y ago
are you sure? how likely is it that an engineer in a technology firm makes 7 figures? I mean what sort of position do you need to have to get there?
- vostok 9y ago
  I'm not sure how to answer the question. How would you answer the equivalent question about finance? It's not like working in finance guarantees you 7 figures. I know plenty of people on both the engineering side and the trading side who never made more than 2-300k. If you want specific examples from tech then the Waymo article from a while back is helpful, but that doesn't mean that you need to work at Waymo or Google to get there, although a large portion of those roles are at Google-tier companies. Your average agency will not be hiring pure developers and paying them 7 figures, although they might to someone who is generating revenue and bringing in enough business to justify it.
  - vasilipupkin 9y ago
    the op made a claim so I am assuming the op knows how to answer this question. The claim is that many more engineers make 7 figures in tech than in finance. My question, specifically, is, what fraction of engineers in tech make 7 figures, let's say what fraction of engineers with 10 years experience and what are the types of positions at those google tier companies that pay this much. I think this is pretty specific