SWE vs IB — Let’s Discuss

So, until recently, I thought the figures thrown around by tech folks on various forums were exaggerated. Last weekend, I met up with two college buddies of mine to catch up, and I was shocked by how well these two had it in tech.

One of them is now a software engineer working at a non FAANG company (Uber, Hulu, Lyft), and his TC with just 4-5 years of experience is north of 450k. He even showed me the offer letter. The guy works 30-40 hours a week (40 when things are “busy”). He says other (more senior) folks on his team make way more.

The other is a product manager at a FAANG company making north of 350k working similar hours.

While I’m incredibly happy for these guys, I can’t help but think that I might be making a mistake pursuing IB as a long-term career, and should instead focus on learning to program and shifting over to tech instead. Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Am I missing something, or is tech the obvious winner here? I understand that this is a small sample size and would appreciate the input of other monkeys working in tech. Thanks.

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