I have not had much volatility when working at a hedge fund, or even finance more generally. It might be different in a pure front office role where your bonus

I have not had much volatility when working at a hedge fund, or even finance more generally. It might be different in a pure front office role where your bonus pool is directly tied to the profit you generate, but being in a tech role, you can generally expect to get what you got last year, plus a little (for varying values of little) more than you got last year. At worst my comp stagnated during the financial crisis. Hours can vary widely between teams/projects but I generally don't have an issue with the hours- like all companies we have our crunch times, but the general day to day is pretty much 9-6.