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I know quite a few people making insane amounts of money working at banks. Sure it’s not glamorous, but their careers are doing just fine. I would agree it’s no

I know quite a few people making insane amounts of money working at banks. Sure it’s not glamorous, but their careers are doing just fine. I would agree it’s not a great place for fresh grads and extremely junior developers. Way too easy to pick up the bad habits and negative aspects of the industry.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
I’m increasingly convinced banking IT is one of the trades of software. There are glitzier gigs. But you’ll need connections or student debt to land them, and their net ROI won’t be as high ten years out. On the other hand, your HN peers won’t look down on your cereal-bowl ad-targeting (granted, fabulously compensated) gig at Google.
- nix23 4y ago
  >I’m increasingly convinced banking IT is one of the trades of software. Banks an Insurance have just really bad marketing, but fraud-detection (aka ML.."AI"), analytics..it's all really interesting, and if you have a good manager who shields you from the internal-wannabe-politicians you can produce software that you can be really proud of (enough time to test/plan etc). And hell, Mainframes are such a interesting field no one talks about (but one could learn some really good lessons).
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > if you have a good manager who shields you from the internal-wannabe-politicians Unfortunately it's hard to find out in interviews if your manager is worth their salt.
    - nix23 4y ago
      Yeah true....like always..
decafninja 4y ago
I'm curious what those people are working on. As a former bulge bracket investment bank software developer, I certainly did not make anywhere close to insane amounts of money. As a "vice president" 10+yoe senior SWE equivalent my TC was probably a tad bit higher than the higher end of a FAANG junior SWE TC. This is in NYC. Ditto for my colleagues. The only kind of SWE I can see making great money at a bank are those working in the algo trading and maybe the quant space, but those are highly niche roles.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

I’m increasingly convinced banking IT is one of the trades of software. There are glitzier gigs. But you’ll need connections or student debt to land them, and their net ROI won’t be as high ten years out. On the other hand, your HN peers won’t look down on your cereal-bowl ad-targeting (granted, fabulously compensated) gig at Google.

nix23 4y ago
>I’m increasingly convinced banking IT is one of the trades of software. Banks an Insurance have just really bad marketing, but fraud-detection (aka ML.."AI"), analytics..it's all really interesting, and if you have a good manager who shields you from the internal-wannabe-politicians you can produce software that you can be really proud of (enough time to test/plan etc). And hell, Mainframes are such a interesting field no one talks about (but one could learn some really good lessons).
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > if you have a good manager who shields you from the internal-wannabe-politicians Unfortunately it's hard to find out in interviews if your manager is worth their salt.
  - nix23 4y ago
    Yeah true....like always..

decafninja 4y ago

I'm curious what those people are working on. As a former bulge bracket investment bank software developer, I certainly did not make anywhere close to insane amounts of money. As a "vice president" 10+yoe senior SWE equivalent my TC was probably a tad bit higher than the higher end of a FAANG junior SWE TC. This is in NYC. Ditto for my colleagues. The only kind of SWE I can see making great money at a bank are those working in the algo trading and maybe the quant space, but those are highly niche roles.