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I don't think so. Yes, you do get paid more, but you're expected to put in more hours and forced to work within a much more rigid environment with less transpar

I don't think so. Yes, you do get paid more, but you're expected to put in more hours and forced to work within a much more rigid environment with less transparency. Also, throughout finance firms (even among the more tech-saavy ones), the programmers are ostensibly considered second-class to the portfolio managers, and this is reflected in the pay. So yes, they get paid more, and as a result they may be more a bit more motivated, but there's nothing egalitarian about programmer pay on Wall Street.

walshemj 12y ago
I think its more egalitarian than SV if only because if your working in that area your probably take a more realistic view of your value. And what about all that unpaid OT that SV companies expect?
michaelochurch 12y ago
you're expected to put in more hours There are some trading houses with really terrible cultures, but there are plenty where people work 9-to-5. Possibly 9-to-7, if a new strategy is being deployed that week. The 12-hour-per-day shops exist, but they're not the norm and they don't get the best people. At least, they don't get good people on the entry level. Top traders will work at them, for a price, but trading companies promote from within a lot more than tech, so that actually hurts them. within a much more rigid environment with less transparency. That's regulatory. It's true that it'd be hard for a trading firm to pull off a Valve-like structure, but most tech companies have the same barriers and permissions systems (but for arbitrary and stupid reasons). If you work for a closed-allocation tech company, there's no good reason not to trade up to a financial job with 50-100+ percent more pay and no fundamental change in work quality. Financial firms also value loyalty more and promote from within. Tech companies almost never promote from within, because they have that emasculated social-climbing mentality of always feeling the need for "better" people. Traders, culturally, have more of humility. "We're regular guys making money doing something hard." (There are some prima donna star traders who are exceptions, but they tend to fall hard and when they do, they're viciously attacked-- as they should be.) Also, throughout finance firms (even among the more tech-saavy ones), the programmers are ostensibly considered second-class to the portfolio managers, and this is reflected in the pay. If you're savvy at all, you'll establish yourself as a quant-who-codes, not a pure programmer. I don't think the Valley is different, in this regard. Non-managing programmers are, if anything, third-class citizens compared to venture capitalists, executives, and the people who are well-connected enough to be made founders. Trust me. Outside of the few open-allocation tech companies (e.g. Valve, Github) the financial world's deal is across-the-board superior. It's harder to get into, though.
consz 12y ago
I'm much more quant than programmer, but even programmers at trading companies get paid at least as well as they do at Google/Facebook (and obviously much better than they'd be paid at a startup) to start with. Not to mention that programmers at SV companies are second class to product managers, so the relative status situation isn't that different. I don't know where you get the more hours/more rigid attitude from. 9hrs is very typical, weekends are very rare, and the only time you ever exceed that is when you are releasing very new strategies -- strategies which you get a direct cut of the PnL, so you have a very direct incentive to want to get that out there and trading as soon as you can. Is everyone equal in finance? No. But compared to working in the valley? It's worlds apart. Let's look at a simple example, for Google and Goldman, take a look at average revenue per employee (~1.2m for both) vs. average compensation per employee (600k for GS, ~150-200k for Google). In what way are Google employees not getting screwed over? Prop trading firms have even flatter structures than Goldman.
- asdfologist 12y ago
  "600k for GS, ~150-200k for Google" is a meaningless comparison. First of all, the 600k is mean, not median, and it's heavily skewed by the relatively few but very high MD/partner salaries. Second, that's across the entire firm, and the GS tech guys are pretty far down the totem pole when it comes to pay. I doubt there's much difference in median programmer pay in GS vs Google, especially recently given the rise in SV salaries. And if you're a quant, then it's totally not fair to compare yourself against a programmer, because even if you're doing programming, it's a completely different job altogether. Quant jobs (the ones immediately touching the models) are much more statistics focused, and the coding is more a means more than an end.
  - consz 12y ago
    What job is there that coding isn't a means to an end?

walshemj 12y ago

I think its more egalitarian than SV if only because if your working in that area your probably take a more realistic view of your value. And what about all that unpaid OT that SV companies expect?

michaelochurch 12y ago

you're expected to put in more hours There are some trading houses with really terrible cultures, but there are plenty where people work 9-to-5. Possibly 9-to-7, if a new strategy is being deployed that week. The 12-hour-per-day shops exist, but they're not the norm and they don't get the best people. At least, they don't get good people on the entry level. Top traders will work at them, for a price, but trading companies promote from within a lot more than tech, so that actually hurts them. within a much more rigid environment with less transparency. That's regulatory. It's true that it'd be hard for a trading firm to pull off a Valve-like structure, but most tech companies have the same barriers and permissions systems (but for arbitrary and stupid reasons). If you work for a closed-allocation tech company, there's no good reason not to trade up to a financial job with 50-100+ percent more pay and no fundamental change in work quality. Financial firms also value loyalty more and promote from within. Tech companies almost never promote from within, because they have that emasculated social-climbing mentality of always feeling the need for "better" people. Traders, culturally, have more of humility. "We're regular guys making money doing something hard." (There are some prima donna star traders who are exceptions, but they tend to fall hard and when they do, they're viciously attacked-- as they should be.) Also, throughout finance firms (even among the more tech-saavy ones), the programmers are ostensibly considered second-class to the portfolio managers, and this is reflected in the pay. If you're savvy at all, you'll establish yourself as a quant-who-codes, not a pure programmer. I don't think the Valley is different, in this regard. Non-managing programmers are, if anything, third-class citizens compared to venture capitalists, executives, and the people who are well-connected enough to be made founders. Trust me. Outside of the few open-allocation tech companies (e.g. Valve, Github) the financial world's deal is across-the-board superior. It's harder to get into, though.

consz 12y ago

I'm much more quant than programmer, but even programmers at trading companies get paid at least as well as they do at Google/Facebook (and obviously much better than they'd be paid at a startup) to start with. Not to mention that programmers at SV companies are second class to product managers, so the relative status situation isn't that different. I don't know where you get the more hours/more rigid attitude from. 9hrs is very typical, weekends are very rare, and the only time you ever exceed that is when you are releasing very new strategies -- strategies which you get a direct cut of the PnL, so you have a very direct incentive to want to get that out there and trading as soon as you can. Is everyone equal in finance? No. But compared to working in the valley? It's worlds apart. Let's look at a simple example, for Google and Goldman, take a look at average revenue per employee (~1.2m for both) vs. average compensation per employee (600k for GS, ~150-200k for Google). In what way are Google employees not getting screwed over? Prop trading firms have even flatter structures than Goldman.

asdfologist 12y ago
"600k for GS, ~150-200k for Google" is a meaningless comparison. First of all, the 600k is mean, not median, and it's heavily skewed by the relatively few but very high MD/partner salaries. Second, that's across the entire firm, and the GS tech guys are pretty far down the totem pole when it comes to pay. I doubt there's much difference in median programmer pay in GS vs Google, especially recently given the rise in SV salaries. And if you're a quant, then it's totally not fair to compare yourself against a programmer, because even if you're doing programming, it's a completely different job altogether. Quant jobs (the ones immediately touching the models) are much more statistics focused, and the coding is more a means more than an end.
- consz 12y ago
  What job is there that coding isn't a means to an end?