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tldr; Tech people can ogle at finance salaries / comp - just remember, it's a deluge of mind-numbingly dumb spreadsheet crunching and slide checking with incur
by 71a54xd 5y ago
tldr; Tech people can ogle at finance salaries / comp - just remember, it's a deluge of mind-numbingly dumb spreadsheet crunching and slide checking with incurious people who will make you wonder how the financial system is still standing. Oh yeah, and they glorify spending 70+ hours a week in the office.
Source - tech guy who's lived with finance bros in NYC for more than a year.
- Gortal278 5y agoJust curious, but any perspective on Finance compensation? I can't really find anything impressive short of head of hedgefund makes lots of money which isn't really a surprise.
- 71a54xd 5y agoSo think far dumber than hedge fund maths, AI, anything "trading". What's also counterintuitive is people who hang around at investment banks for more than 1-2 years are usually less skilled / motivated. The play in finance is generally if you grind out the corporate game long enough, you'll see impressive pay. The work is just horrifically dull, you're always at the mercy of your superior nearly 24/7 and it just takes time. First year analysts (excel monkeys), basically people with a business degree and a middle-school statistics education are getting paid easily $110k base with $90k bonus (this is MIDDLE of the road). I live with people who are 25, have nothing more than a finance degree from the university of Florida and have made "associate" at second-tier firms like Lazard and RBC making $220k base and easily $110k bonus.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- RobRivera 5y ago200k associate, 350k junior vp, 500k+ mid level vp given you dont quit bc soul crushing life or liver problems
- antiterra 5y agoThe stuff traders do with spreadsheets is actually insanely interesting and impressive, and the ones I have met are far from incurious. The hours and suffer culture are real, however. Even if you’re lucky enough to work in a space with short trading windows, you likely have to spend a significant amount of off-work time making social connections with your counterparts at other firms. That part of the job intersects with a drinking culture that is no doubt hazardous for many who participate.
- RobRivera 5y agotrading isnt banking
- antiterra 5y agobanking absolutely includes being the middleman on trades, selling futures, transacting in corporate papers. I’d argue a bank executing trades and hedges against those positions falls under banking as a mere tautology.
- RobRivera 5y agoBanking is shorthand for Invest Banking, a subset of product and service offerings of a Bulge Brackets I built trading platforms for a bank. I am not a banker nor was I in banking
- 71a54xd 5y ago"Traders" in my opinion are far different than deal makers and "consultants". Sure, they're maybe the top 10% of the people doing actual "thinking" and yes I also find it interesting. However, a majority of what's going on is just delegation. Which actively incentivizes against being curious or solving problems. The best example of this I've been given was a friend who asked an MD (someone making $1.5MM+ at BofA) whether they'd considered using outsourced tutors for their kids exam prep after spending days if not weeks complaining about quality of western exam prep / online instruction. The MD supposedly had never heard of it and brushed the idea off entirely.
- 5y ago
- pleb_nz 5y agoWho in their right mind glorifies working 70 plus hours week in this day and age. Most people I know glorify working more productively in less than 40 hours per week.
- Jxl180 5y ago“Money never sleeps.” - Gordon Gekko. I know people who went into finance inspired by the movie Wall Street.
- RobRivera 5y agostrong concur Source - another tech guy who lived with bankers in nyc.
- throwa5678911 5y agoMeanwhile tech people in finance ogle at tech salaries!