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Yeah, pay at the big banks is shit really, especially when you consider the utter lack of work/life balance. I left in 2013 making 150k, which was supposed to b

Yeah, pay at the big banks is shit really, especially when you consider the utter lack of work/life balance. I left in 2013 making 150k, which was supposed to be supplemented by a ~40% bonus for the level I was at, but each year was "well its been a tough year..." and after getting a token amount one year, and then zeroes the next 2, after working 50-60 hour weeks, I was like I am not only done with this place, but this industry, and left for a 50% pay raise, my TC is now 4x where it was in those days. A neighbor of mine is more or less sitting in my exact seat there, and is somewhere in the 200-250k range. That said, I went back to finance to work at one of the premier hedge funds out there, and they actually lived up to their expectations in terms of comp, that place was more like a tech firm though than any other firm I have ever worked at aside for maybe Knight. 8% annual increases were normal there. You can look in my post history back to 2018 if you want the name, I recently left after 5 years there and just want to stay out of their crosshairs- they monitor social media aggressively and there is deferred comp at stake. At big banks, there are really only a very small number of people who are in tech that are getting paid- you have to know which questions to ask- where is the bonus pool coming from- are you "in the business" or the tech pool, which is a second class of citizen. I would have to be in a pretty bad place to ever consider going back to a bank, it was borderline abusive... always dangling the prospect of that big check that would make it worth it

22SAS 4y ago
Most quantitative hedge funds and prop trading firms are now following a very tech like culture since they realize now that technology is just as important as the strategies. To get the best engineers, especially from FAANG, they need to have a similar culture otherwise they'll have a hard time getting new hires.
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  It depends what the strategy is. Frankly, a lot of what people refer to as "prop trading firms" and "quant hedge funds" on here are just market-makers...they are taking very little to no risk, a lot are just riding the wave of ETF growth. Even the ones that are running alpha, I have heard of a few strategies, and they are largely what you would expect: low-edge, crowded trades (frankly, a lot of it is LTCM-style stuff). That is why the business has become more tech-like, because actually taking risk is...quite risky. If you are going for alpha, you are trying to hire one guy out of thousands, that person knows what they are worth, etc. It is far easier to hire lots of devs on low wages and do the grunt work jobs that are less lucrative, but don't require being able to actually work out if someone is a decent earner. Man Group has their own department at Oxford Uni, I think Winton hires people out of their department at Cambridge...Man Group's shaky record is legendary (they are doing everything now that blew them up in 2008), Winton was top tier...not anymore. AQR is another one, although a more traditionally finance quant approach...it all turned out to be pure beta. The hybrid approach of hiring devs or ML PHds to generate alpha has only ever worked accidently. The firms that have been printing money from quant investing over the past five years have all been traditional hedge funds that incorporated quant methods into a fundamental process. And I expect that will continue because, bluntly, these firms know what the price of a security should be better than some busted factor model.
  - 22SAS 4y ago
    Interesting, would you add RenTech and TGS into the "traditional hedge funds that incorporated quant methods into a fundamental process" bucket?
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
      No. Because that isn't what they do (I am talking about fundamental investors: Marshall Wace, Point72, etc.). I have no real idea what they do or do not do but they trade over shorter time frames where there is no change in fundamental information (i.e. they are trading based on liquidity signals which is, essentially, what market-making is now).
rosege 4y ago
I spent a few years at an investment bank, not in the US, and the only people on serious money were some of the top managers. But my overall opinion of these people were that they did very little but the lower downs I met were some of the most talented people I ever worked with. The top ones would spend all their time traveling the world to the offices and meeting with staff in each location and the sending emails to the rest of the department about what the staff in that location were working on. They would harvest ideas from the staff as they went and then present that as their own or approve projects that staff have suggested to them. I really didn't see how they were worth the $5M they were earning since they didn't come up with the ideas for what would be done and didn't do any real work.
- rvba 4y ago
  Probably there were many ideas.
smcl 4y ago
>> Then when we get to talking numbers they're like "300k a year". > Yeah, pay at the big banks is shit really I would say that a $300,000/year salary is really quite far from "shit". Many jobs are stressful, demanding or unrewarding but rarely do they provide such a salary, and quite often they offer hourly wages hovering around minimum wage with poor benefits. It's worth taking a step back once in a while to think about this, because it sounds like some people are a little out of touch with how the majority of the world lives
- charcoalhobo 4y ago
  This is a welcome bit of perspective, so thank you for that. I often find myself complaining about things at work like competing priorities or wearing too many hats and it helps me to ground myself by thinking about past jobs at minimum wage or even watching what people making less than a fifth of my salary have to put up with on a daily basis.
- sjtindell 4y ago
  I believe that technology and other workers who are paid these salaries are actually just the only workers lucky enough to be getting a fraction of what is their fair share. You shouldn’t let a CEO walk with 300x their workers wage and say “well at least I’m not in poverty like those other workers”. You should almost always fight for more.
- kevstev 4y ago
  I would agree, but I really don't think many people are making that kind of money at IBs. Things may have changed, but as I mentioned, a neighbor who is pretty much in my seat- well technically one level up as a director (though title inflation has just made pretty much all titles below MD worthless), and was not pulling 300k. The new guys on the desk were not clearing 100k, and even "senior" guys like me were making a wage that just barely put us in the ownership class, and we were sacrificing a good chunk of our lives for it. And again- these are the cream of the crop, this is the team most people wanted to work. I was one of the first to leave, but all those guys are now making multiples elsewhere that I am aware of. The point is that there are just better opportunities out there where you get to actually enjoy your life. I hear you on other jobs being stressful and demanding, but I have not really worked at a job where I was wearing that stress 24/7- well typically nothing traded on Saturday night, so nothing would ruin that, but outside of that, I could expect a call at literally any time of day- the markets were trading 23x6.
revel 4y ago
Sounds like I had a similar experience to you, except many years prior. I actually worked on a desk where there was a front page-headline scandal, partly caused by lack of investment in tech. I would never recommend anyone work in finance based on my experiences, but most people get very excited and assume it was fun and lucrative work. It was neither. I heard, on multiple occasions from senior leadership, that industry practice was to categorize all dev work as IT so they could justify lower compensation. Pay was, just as you pointed out, not the main problem with this setup. There was no respect for other people and individuals were frequently berated or humiliated for no reason. One interesting observation: despite the fact that I am very well qualified to work in the sector, it's very rare for fintech recruiters to reach out to me. They must know that I'm far out of their pay grade now and will never go back.

22SAS 4y ago

Most quantitative hedge funds and prop trading firms are now following a very tech like culture since they realize now that technology is just as important as the strategies. To get the best engineers, especially from FAANG, they need to have a similar culture otherwise they'll have a hard time getting new hires.

skippyboxedhero 4y ago
It depends what the strategy is. Frankly, a lot of what people refer to as "prop trading firms" and "quant hedge funds" on here are just market-makers...they are taking very little to no risk, a lot are just riding the wave of ETF growth. Even the ones that are running alpha, I have heard of a few strategies, and they are largely what you would expect: low-edge, crowded trades (frankly, a lot of it is LTCM-style stuff). That is why the business has become more tech-like, because actually taking risk is...quite risky. If you are going for alpha, you are trying to hire one guy out of thousands, that person knows what they are worth, etc. It is far easier to hire lots of devs on low wages and do the grunt work jobs that are less lucrative, but don't require being able to actually work out if someone is a decent earner. Man Group has their own department at Oxford Uni, I think Winton hires people out of their department at Cambridge...Man Group's shaky record is legendary (they are doing everything now that blew them up in 2008), Winton was top tier...not anymore. AQR is another one, although a more traditionally finance quant approach...it all turned out to be pure beta. The hybrid approach of hiring devs or ML PHds to generate alpha has only ever worked accidently. The firms that have been printing money from quant investing over the past five years have all been traditional hedge funds that incorporated quant methods into a fundamental process. And I expect that will continue because, bluntly, these firms know what the price of a security should be better than some busted factor model.
- 22SAS 4y ago
  Interesting, would you add RenTech and TGS into the "traditional hedge funds that incorporated quant methods into a fundamental process" bucket?
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    No. Because that isn't what they do (I am talking about fundamental investors: Marshall Wace, Point72, etc.). I have no real idea what they do or do not do but they trade over shorter time frames where there is no change in fundamental information (i.e. they are trading based on liquidity signals which is, essentially, what market-making is now).

rosege 4y ago

I spent a few years at an investment bank, not in the US, and the only people on serious money were some of the top managers. But my overall opinion of these people were that they did very little but the lower downs I met were some of the most talented people I ever worked with. The top ones would spend all their time traveling the world to the offices and meeting with staff in each location and the sending emails to the rest of the department about what the staff in that location were working on. They would harvest ideas from the staff as they went and then present that as their own or approve projects that staff have suggested to them. I really didn't see how they were worth the $5M they were earning since they didn't come up with the ideas for what would be done and didn't do any real work.

rvba 4y ago
Probably there were many ideas.

smcl 4y ago

>> Then when we get to talking numbers they're like "300k a year". > Yeah, pay at the big banks is shit really I would say that a $300,000/year salary is really quite far from "shit". Many jobs are stressful, demanding or unrewarding but rarely do they provide such a salary, and quite often they offer hourly wages hovering around minimum wage with poor benefits. It's worth taking a step back once in a while to think about this, because it sounds like some people are a little out of touch with how the majority of the world lives

charcoalhobo 4y ago
This is a welcome bit of perspective, so thank you for that. I often find myself complaining about things at work like competing priorities or wearing too many hats and it helps me to ground myself by thinking about past jobs at minimum wage or even watching what people making less than a fifth of my salary have to put up with on a daily basis.
sjtindell 4y ago
I believe that technology and other workers who are paid these salaries are actually just the only workers lucky enough to be getting a fraction of what is their fair share. You shouldn’t let a CEO walk with 300x their workers wage and say “well at least I’m not in poverty like those other workers”. You should almost always fight for more.
kevstev 4y ago
I would agree, but I really don't think many people are making that kind of money at IBs. Things may have changed, but as I mentioned, a neighbor who is pretty much in my seat- well technically one level up as a director (though title inflation has just made pretty much all titles below MD worthless), and was not pulling 300k. The new guys on the desk were not clearing 100k, and even "senior" guys like me were making a wage that just barely put us in the ownership class, and we were sacrificing a good chunk of our lives for it. And again- these are the cream of the crop, this is the team most people wanted to work. I was one of the first to leave, but all those guys are now making multiples elsewhere that I am aware of. The point is that there are just better opportunities out there where you get to actually enjoy your life. I hear you on other jobs being stressful and demanding, but I have not really worked at a job where I was wearing that stress 24/7- well typically nothing traded on Saturday night, so nothing would ruin that, but outside of that, I could expect a call at literally any time of day- the markets were trading 23x6.

revel 4y ago

Sounds like I had a similar experience to you, except many years prior. I actually worked on a desk where there was a front page-headline scandal, partly caused by lack of investment in tech. I would never recommend anyone work in finance based on my experiences, but most people get very excited and assume it was fun and lucrative work. It was neither. I heard, on multiple occasions from senior leadership, that industry practice was to categorize all dev work as IT so they could justify lower compensation. Pay was, just as you pointed out, not the main problem with this setup. There was no respect for other people and individuals were frequently berated or humiliated for no reason. One interesting observation: despite the fact that I am very well qualified to work in the sector, it's very rare for fintech recruiters to reach out to me. They must know that I'm far out of their pay grade now and will never go back.