Curious to see the differences in pay, hours, work life balance and career progression is at these banks vs larger banks. How has your experience been?
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Unfortunately, the responses are going to vary greatly depending on the individual boutique. Generally, really small shops (5-10 guys) have a much more lax WLB and the comp reflects that. Essentially about half the hours (40 per week) and half the comp (~65k-85k all in). As you scale, the comp and hours become more and more in line with larger banks, generally. I worked at one boutique that was sweaty af, and analysts burned 100 hour weeks at a firm youve never heard of that paid far below market comp.
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