I used to work for a hedge fund until 2013. Was there for 9 years. I was in back office IT. In 2005, we were around 1200 employees, around 900 of which IT/devel

I used to work for a hedge fund until 2013. Was there for 9 years. I was in back office IT. In 2005, we were around 1200 employees, around 900 of which IT/development. We didnt beat the S&P 500 that year. Knee jerk reaction was to fire 600 from IT. Personally went from being 1 of a team of 13 managing 2 critical systems and a couple of GUIs and various tools to being a team of 1 inside of a week. Lasted that way for 7 years. 2008 was a shit show. We lost around 80% of all AUM in the space of a single month. Earned it all back in 2 years (40:1 leverage is a bitch when the market turns and what youre holding isnt liquid). I now work at a firm that primarily operates mutual funds. Far less stress, but far lower performance of the funds. The MF is far more cobservative. The great hedge funds look great, probably mostly due to survivorship bias. The ones that last are mostly lucky (although there's some strategy there). Some of the big losers are also remembered. Such as Brian Hunter and Amaranth (fun read, look it up. Single trader blew up a 9 billion USD hedge fund). I also remember when someone taped a $2 bill to the front door of Bear Stearns when their stock price dropped below $2. That said, I put in long hours over the years I was at the hedge fund. 80 hour weeks were expected. Did 6 months once of 100 weeks (only went home every other day). The only carrot to do that was the bonus, which for backoffice IT was was 20-25% of my base salary. I bought a pretty nice car with my last bonus. My bonus was certainly a far, far lower percent of my overall comp than the traders, but that bonus was huge for me. Also, my base salary was likely higher than the traders.