4 ms·

Graduates are very attractive to them - no need to pay a proper bonus. If you are in states opting for a large tech company instead is a no-brainer IMHO.

by CmonDev 12y ago

pmorici 12y ago
If someone is making the decision based on pay I'm fairly certain that Goldman Sachs, and financial firms in general pay better than most tech companies in SV. Heck 4 of the bigger companies in tech have all but admitted that they are guilty of colluding to keep salaries artificially low. http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement-rejection-in-wage-fixing-case/ http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement-reje...
- JDiculous 12y ago
  Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure starting salaries at GS and other banks are around $80-90k + a small bonus (10-20%?). Not bad, but definitely less than Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and other major tech companies. So if you're a software engineer going for the money, GS isn't really the place to be.
  - 3EAFC164D817 12y ago
    > So if you're a software engineer going for the money, GS isn't really the place to be. Over the long term, financial services wins. The compensation curve is much steeper than most tech firms.
    - lern_too_spel 12y ago
      GS in particular pays crap wages according to salar.ly.
      - massmana 12y ago
        That's because you're looking at the wrong job title. For experienced engineers look at Vice President and Senior Vice President.
        lern_too_spel 12y ago
        I'm well aware of the "everybody's a VP" system at Goldman. Those are the titles I'm looking at.
        omh 12y ago
        Do the stats include bonus? If you're a Goldman VP then your salary might be mediocre but your bonus will be significant
      - pmorici 12y ago
        Salar.ly gets it's data from foreign worker visa applications how representative of the wider work force can that possibly be?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- carlchenet 12y ago
  Different work atmosphere though
- jrockway 12y ago
  I basically doubled my salary by moving from finance to software. And the job is much more interesting, my coworkers are smarter, people appreciate my work, and the food is free. (There are also fringe benefits, like finding things that annoy you about your desktop and submitting a patch to the OS that day.) I find investment banking very interesting work, from the software side, but the market doesn't really care about software. You're always a "cost center", never a revenue center. Also you have to use Outlook, which I find unenjoyable.
  - pmorici 12y ago
    I think that has changed with the rise of algorithmic trading it's the software making the money and they advertise 150k+ salaries in job listings I've come across in that industry. Tech companies on the other hand seem to pay an average of $125k which seems to be the bare minimum you would need to survive in the bay area. Free food is great but if you figure out the value of it it is probably worth $5k per year tops.
    - kasey_junk 12y ago
      Algo trading is a vanishingly small segment of the finance industry & a very small part of what an ibank like GS does. I don't have references to back this up, but I wouldn't be surprised if they have single derivatives deals that are more profitable than their entire HFT operation. Like most big deals the "sales" side makes the money in those.
      - justincormack 12y ago
        Well so far extracting money from dumb customers is still an excellent business to be in. eg charging $47m for a spreadsheet with a $100m error [1] or helping Libya invest its money in trades that soon became worthless[2]. It is hard to make money like that from trading alone with such low risk. But Goldman can see the writing on the wall, and now has 25% of its staff in tech, because the markets are changing fast. Stupid people will still make up much of the revenue stream for a long time though, and large companies that like to pay large sums. [1] http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/10/16/spreadsheet-mistake-costs-tibco-shareholders-100-million/ http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/10/16/spreadsheet-mistak... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/06/goldman-sachs-banker-libyan-fund-lavish-trip-high-court http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/06/goldman-sach...

Graduates are very attractive to them - no need to pay a proper bonus. If you are in states opting for a large tech company instead is a no-brainer IMHO.

by CmonDev 12y ago

Graduates are very attractive to them - no need to pay a proper bonus. If you are in states opting for a large tech company instead is a no-brainer IMHO.

pmorici 12y ago

If someone is making the decision based on pay I'm fairly certain that Goldman Sachs, and financial firms in general pay better than most tech companies in SV. Heck 4 of the bigger companies in tech have all but admitted that they are guilty of colluding to keep salaries artificially low. http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement-rejection-in-wage-fixing-case/ http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement-reje...

JDiculous 12y ago
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure starting salaries at GS and other banks are around $80-90k + a small bonus (10-20%?). Not bad, but definitely less than Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and other major tech companies. So if you're a software engineer going for the money, GS isn't really the place to be.
- 3EAFC164D817 12y ago
  > So if you're a software engineer going for the money, GS isn't really the place to be. Over the long term, financial services wins. The compensation curve is much steeper than most tech firms.
  - lern_too_spel 12y ago
    GS in particular pays crap wages according to salar.ly.
    - massmana 12y ago
      That's because you're looking at the wrong job title. For experienced engineers look at Vice President and Senior Vice President.
      - lern_too_spel 12y ago
        I'm well aware of the "everybody's a VP" system at Goldman. Those are the titles I'm looking at.
        omh 12y ago
        Do the stats include bonus? If you're a Goldman VP then your salary might be mediocre but your bonus will be significant
    - pmorici 12y ago
      Salar.ly gets it's data from foreign worker visa applications how representative of the wider work force can that possibly be?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
carlchenet 12y ago
Different work atmosphere though
jrockway 12y ago
I basically doubled my salary by moving from finance to software. And the job is much more interesting, my coworkers are smarter, people appreciate my work, and the food is free. (There are also fringe benefits, like finding things that annoy you about your desktop and submitting a patch to the OS that day.) I find investment banking very interesting work, from the software side, but the market doesn't really care about software. You're always a "cost center", never a revenue center. Also you have to use Outlook, which I find unenjoyable.
- pmorici 12y ago
  I think that has changed with the rise of algorithmic trading it's the software making the money and they advertise 150k+ salaries in job listings I've come across in that industry. Tech companies on the other hand seem to pay an average of $125k which seems to be the bare minimum you would need to survive in the bay area. Free food is great but if you figure out the value of it it is probably worth $5k per year tops.
  - kasey_junk 12y ago
    Algo trading is a vanishingly small segment of the finance industry & a very small part of what an ibank like GS does. I don't have references to back this up, but I wouldn't be surprised if they have single derivatives deals that are more profitable than their entire HFT operation. Like most big deals the "sales" side makes the money in those.
    - justincormack 12y ago
      Well so far extracting money from dumb customers is still an excellent business to be in. eg charging $47m for a spreadsheet with a $100m error [1] or helping Libya invest its money in trades that soon became worthless[2]. It is hard to make money like that from trading alone with such low risk. But Goldman can see the writing on the wall, and now has 25% of its staff in tech, because the markets are changing fast. Stupid people will still make up much of the revenue stream for a long time though, and large companies that like to pay large sums. [1] http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/10/16/spreadsheet-mistake-costs-tibco-shareholders-100-million/ http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/10/16/spreadsheet-mistak... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/06/goldman-sachs-banker-libyan-fund-lavish-trip-high-court http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/06/goldman-sach...