When I left college, I joined a big bank and eventually made the jump to a startup. Here's why: - I spent my first of two years as an applications developer an

When I left college, I joined a big bank and eventually made the jump to a startup. Here's why: - I spent my first of two years as an applications developer and didn't push more than 20 lines of code into production. My days were wasted with planning meetings and release management. I spent more time in excel spreadsheets than anything else. - In my second year, I worked on a new product. Things seemed much more interesting, but something was still missing. I cover a lot of that in my blog post about my transition from a big bank to a startup. https://atjonesblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/my-transition-to-startup-life/ https://atjonesblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/my-transition-t... - In the article, it is mentioned that Goldman works on problems in machine learning, data mining, and cloud computing. I'm sure this is 100% accurate, but what they fail to mention is these interesting projects are usually strictly for PhDs or engineers with decades of experience. - As a technologist in a bank, you're a second-class citizen. The executives may say things like, "we're not a bank, we're a tech company!", but I saw no actions to back up the statements. Majority of the recognition goes to the bankers, ignoring the infrastructure laid by the tech and operations side of the business. After all that, I'd say I had a decent experience, but I don't think I would have missed much by jumping straight into a tech company.