NYC is a nice market for freelancing. Compounding some extra income on top of your current salary (in a field you already specialize in) seems like the path of

NYC is a nice market for freelancing. Compounding some extra income on top of your current salary (in a field you already specialize in) seems like the path of least resistance. If you've got the background, programming black boxes for hedge funds is not a bad gig. Also, Bloomberg is recruiting devs in your area hard right now, the last I heard they were offering about $220 base for guys to build their new HFT-related products. (That's word of mouth from a recruiter). You can see lots of their open positions here: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/company/bloomberg http://careers.stackoverflow.com/company/bloomberg Genius.com claims to be the best paying startup in your area. They're actively recruiting for full stack guys right now and pay upwards of $230k https://angel.co/genius/jobs/36568-full-stack-developer https://angel.co/genius/jobs/36568-full-stack-developer But also, couldn't you dip your toe into finance little by little? Go out and get your Series 7 done, etc, and then figure out if you actually want to do it.