As someone who has worked at a few of the "top 10 banks in NYC" for most of my career (and still am...albeit trying to desperately get out), I have to say that

As someone who has worked at a few of the "top 10 banks in NYC" for most of my career (and still am...albeit trying to desperately get out), I have to say that the quality of much of the engineering talent at these firms, and the typical candidates that would apply there, are pretty low. Yes, I realize that the above statement can be construed as spitting on my own face in a way. So I am not surprised. There may be a few small niches that attract good quality talent, but otherwise I don't know why anyone would opt to work as a technologist at a bank as opposed to say, a bonafide real tech company (all the banks are eager to say they are "tech companies" nowadays), or even a hedge fund.