One thing I like about finance is that they are better than most corporations at respecting and evaluating intelligence. They don't reject the 140+ IQ set outri

One thing I like about finance is that they are better than most corporations at respecting and evaluating intelligence. They don't reject the 140+ IQ set outright in the way that most corporate environments (even some startups) do. Financial companies may restrain and underemploy such people with bureaucratic nonsense, but they also pay for the pain. The problem with the developer economy is that paid work has very low career efficiency. There's just a lot of glop work to go around, and most engineers don't have the political pull to get past it and on to the interesting stuff, which they're perceived as underqualified for because of their track record of crappy work (even if done well). Most engineers have about a 75% slack ratio in their careers, which prevents them from ever getting really good. But give a decently smart and motivated engineer 5 years of full autonomy and you'll have the guys and gals that people make Chuck Norris jokes about.