"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

"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.