Finance's luster fading?
http://techcrunch.com/2008/01/30/stanford-compute…
According to this article, cs grads are being offered 80-100 base salaries from top firms like google/facebook, not to mention 10-20K in bonus, stock/option grants, comprehensive benefits, 20 days vacation, ect - pretty clearly superior to what consultancies/banks are offering these days. Some startups are paying just as much PLUS equity ownership, with 80 hr weeks compared to banking's 80-120.
Another thing to consider is that Google provides free food and shirts - it's almost at the point that the only thing you have to pay for is housing - you should be able to save up a HUGE amount of cash if you live frugally - potentially 300K+ in 5 years with conservative investments, if you are living alone/frugally.
While firms like Google and facebook are well known grinds - the 60-70 hr weeks still seem rather pleasant compared to the 80-120 hrs investment banking analysts face.
Yes, we all know that everyone does banking/consulting for the exit options/learning, not the pay - but associate banking/PE pay is wallowing below 200K (excluding megafunds), only about 50K more than what CS students at top firms will earn with 4 years experience. Furthermore, getting into PE at all is a crap shoot, as is making MD/VP at a bank. The clearer exit op, corp dev, pays less and hours that are at least as bad as google/facebook.
I realize that the overlap of students interesting in both banking/consulting and CS is probably small (except at MIT/Caltech), but it does make you wonder if the tradeoff isn't so clear anymore. Seems to me that lots of banks/consultancies will be losing top talent from MIT/Caltech/Stanford (excepting those taking on a quant/prop role, of course).
I think you're right to be honest. While I still think high finance is up there and always will be, jobs at places like netapp, google, facebook etc are very appealing. Especially given the huge benefit packages they offer.
Seems like Wall street's reputation is fading as well. You'll most likely get a "wow" response if you say you work somewhere like Google as opposed to xxxx bank...etc (This is for "main street" of course)
Of course Google > IBD. But do you have any idea what it takes to land a gig at Google?!
^ I was just referring to Google as an example. This applies to other top tech companies too like Intel, Microsoft, HP...etc It's not that difficult to land a gig in f500 corp fin.
The average person has never heard of any other banks outside of MS and GS. Also, look at what's going on right now with GS....
Actually a job at Exxon pays 80k too, and you don't have to live in NYC.
It's the beginning of a natural realignment in career priorities. Both prestige and pay on the Street have taken a huge hit over the past two years. Combine that with competitive comp packages outside of the Street and you're going to see a lot of former wannabe bankers veer off in other directions over the next few years.
I interned at one of the said companies and had a return offer, so I feel I can add a bit to this discussion. The base salary of 95k is very uncommon ... most base salaries for Google/Msft/Apple (I can't speak for FB though) are around 70k with no sign-on bonus. Also, 20k bonuses are not common in technology. However, stock options, free food, and some other nice perks (free city-transport passes, discounted prices for groceries, free gym e.t.c) are very common. Whoever said Intel pays a lot knows jack-shit - the pay there is very low. The -reason is because pure software firms (Google, FB) don't have much PPE (computers don't cost much $) and can afford to pay their employees well, but Intel has fabs that cost billions.
Now, when you factor in cost of living in NYC, the all-in pay is actually quite comparable between WS and Technology (and maybe slightly in favor of Tech). My main problem with tech, however, was that most FT employees around me hit a glass ceiling around 150-200k/yr. You either have to have phd and head a Coporate Research group, or play the office politics right and get in a VP/MD level position to make big bucks(VP/MD designations in Tech aren't thrown around nearly as liberally as in finance...VP is actually very very senior in Tech). However, in a lot of these firms you'll find many people who are not motivated primarily by the $, but by a chance to do innovative work (the $ is just a nice added bonus). Secondly, in technology there are 2 kinds of jobs: code monkey jobs & proper corporate research. The SDE jobs at Msft, for example, is just a lot of code monkey work - the truly baller people work at Msft Research (this requires a phd though).
Now to address selectivity: Getting in Google is ridiculous (you have to be truly brilliant), but getting a job at Intel, Cisco, Msft ... is actually not hard for an EE or CS major who knows his stuff.
If you work at a firm like intel, microsoft, cisco, you are not getting paid like google...
google is a bit different because it's probably the highest paying job in the tech industry.
However, it takes A LOT to get into google. You absolutely have to be the brightest cs student in your school to be in it. Their interviews are ridiculous.
Also, those high paying tech companies usually cut people if they dont make managers by 27-28, which is pretty hard considering you are competing with the smartest people already.
As far as salary goes, the starting is pretty high, but it caps around 130k during your late 20s for high tech companies like cisco, intel, microsoft,etc., unless you move really high up. Imagine just how much you can make if you stay in finance until your late 20s..
To be honest, I hope the luster does begin fading. Then we could get some of these people who should be brain surgeons out of the profession of finance.
There is absolutely nothing bad about fewer grads looking to get into finance.
Exactly, less competition for us and more grads researching technologies and commercializing products that we will enjoy in future.
One interesting fact: Google has its own venture fund. I've seen people go from a product management role -> Google Ventures with as little as an MBA and IB internship experience. Obviously not typical.
I'm sticking with finance.
From what I have heard Google doesn't pay that well anymore- they are riding their reputation and leveraging that to offer lower salaries. The perks and offices at Google are second to none though. I have some friends that left finance/tech and went straight tech and they say Google has become a very typical company as it has grown- even the famed 20% time to work on your own projects isn't really supported anymore. The startup feel is long gone.
unqwertyfied is really spot on. In tech its really tough to be "rank and file" and bringing home over 200k. An AVP in tech is on par with a VP on the b-side- they are generally the workhorses that get shit done and don't have to deal with the grunt work, and depending on the area, are living comfortably, but aren't buying mercedes. The area is huge though- back office guys are usually just getting a few grand at the end of the year, while a senior guy in a good front office role can take home six figures.
A good friend of mine was a top CS student at MIT. He got offers everywhere coming out of college and decided on Microsoft, where he worked on their mobile devices group. He said the starting pay was good, and due to the low cost of living in washington state, he was able to save a lot of money and even buy a home. But the pay hits a ceiling quickly, whereby making the real big bucks becomes nearly impossible. He ended up moving to NYC to work at DE Shaw, where the pay was better and the work even more interesting.
I think banking in general is taking a reputational hit, but there are still a lot of elite jobs in finance that will continue to pay well.
^ real talk
I feel like, if you are a talented CS student, you are better off at a place like DE Shaw (assuming you're competitive enough to land a job at GOOG, you could probably swing one at DE Shaw)
this is not news. why is anyone surprised? top tier engineering and cs jobs have always been extremely competitive with banking and consulting jobs since even before the tech bubble. and people who think it's easier to get a job at, say, google than a BB simply do not know what they're talking about. and there are many people who use MBB as a stepping stone to a job like google.
the bottom line is that compensation, for the most part, is determined by the supply-demand dynamics of a particular skillset/background. compensation trends within industries are simply by-product of that.
Google and Microsoft have been offering this to Illinois and most state school grads for five years. Are you guys telling me these kinds of offers are a new thing at the banking target schools? Also, work at Google and Amazon is more like 36 hours/week (4 hours on Friday- you get out at 1 PM to go surfing).
State school engineering degrees: They're everywhere you want to be™.
Why do you feel the need to come into every thread to defend your alma mater and the midwest in general? Are you that insecure about your pedigree?
As a Physics/Math Major from suburban Illinois I can tell you that you are wrong.
Though I will say that the Engineering program at UofI is great, and could land you a well paying job; blanketing that to state schools is not correct.
Look at the Big Ten, every other school but maybe Michigan wouldn't be able to land you a good Engineering gig paying 80 out of undergrad. (Yep, not NWestern)
Also, Engineering is not the same as CS or EE. Google will not look at you if your major is just E, with no double in CS or Electronic track.
But Engineers are the highest paid undergrads entering the work place. There is an article on this just about every year for the past five years in US News and World.
Seriously, though, I would add Indiana, Perdue, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to the list in the Big Ten as well. (NWestern is the best school in the Big Ten in many disciplines, but I am omitting it because I don't think it makes the top twenty engineering schools as reported by US News, while I think most of the schools I listed do). Actually, I have a friend who got hired into Google out of Perdue's CS program. And don't forget all of the SEC, ACC, and Pac 8 schools, as well as the UTs. I guess you're right that we shouldn't say that most state school grads get offers from Google, but I do think it's fair to say that most of Google's offers go to state school grads. This may be a function of the size of these programs or it may be a function of their research quality relative to some of the private schools.
Yes, but the standard deviation on engineers' salaries is much smaller. The 5th percentile highest income in engineering starting positions is probably more like $80K for engineers; the 5th percentile for finance grads is probably six figures.And yes, it's tough to get into Google if you don't have a very strong (CS or CompE equiv) programming background.
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Google isn't the only company with such perks, there are alot of smaller Google and Microsoft spin-offs that offer the same thing: 3 weeks vacation, paid lunches, wfh once a week, etc. In terms of prestige Google is the 2008 Goldman so you don't choose them, they choose you.
To be back on topic though, the hiring trends by the high-tech companies simply means that there is a greater demand for intelligent (whatever that means) students. This means that salaries can only rise in the financial sector as competition for talent rises. This is a good thing for us, not for the super wealthy.
This is way, way off base. I work in consulting, and have many friends that went IBD, and a few that went Google/Facebook, and a few others that work in other startups in Silicon Valley, so I have a fair idea what I'm talking about.
1) This article is 2+ years old. 2) Yes, these guys can make a lot of money out of school. However, you hit a pay ceiling very fast (assuming you don't get equity in the next Google, which is very rare and pure luck, rather than skill). In IBD, your pay increases much, much faster. Compare salaries at age 30 or 35 and see how they compare then. 3) It is astronomically harder to get one of these jobs than it is to land an IBD or even MBB job. Seriously. Not even in the same ballpark. Obviously IBD/MBB is no walk in the park, but they hire orders of magnitude more people out of school every year than the Google/Facebook crowd. 4) In order to get one of these jobs, you have to have some seriously innate skills that have been refined over YEARS of serious, hardcore development (read: computer programming) on some cutting edge work. With IBD/MBB, it's enough to be able to demonstrate a great GPA from a great school, plus ability to work hard, learn, and show some intelligence and prep for the interviews. All of that won't even get your resume past the trash bin with these guys. In short, IBD/MBB are looking for someone they can MOLD into a badass--whereas Google and Facebook are looking for people who are ALREADY a badass, and have been that way for several years.
The only similarity here is that all of these industries only look at very high quality people. But honestly, aside from that, the people that go to Google et al are very different than the ones that go IBD/MBB. Don't bother comparing.
Finance is obvioulsy more prestigous. When I think of banking I think of J. P. Morgan, Old Wealth, British People in expensive clothes, that old movie "you cant take it with you" and the Kirby family of rich ass bankers, if your evil you get schemes named after you, if you are good you get foundations named after you......
There are three ways to get the type of prestige that Scott Fitzgerald had wet dreams about:
1) Industrialist...AKA Rockefellar 2) Banker.....AKA Morgan 3) Attorney....I dont have an example, but it just sounds like an Old WEalth profession to me
Notice that Fitzgerald (or any other wealth obsessed american author) didnt have any whiney ass programmers in his books, he had hard ass bankers, industrialists, and booze runners.
Plus, do you want to hang around with a bunch of hard ass, whiskey swilling, cigar smoking, social darwinists like Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Morgan (both Sir Henry the pirate and JP), and Rockefeller. Or dou you want to chill with a bunch of liberal do good sissy asses, like Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg's.
Come now, the bankers and industrialists even have more hard ass names. Hell, Page is a fucking girls name.
To you, and many others, it is. But to the people who could actually land one of these jobs in the first place, it's frequently (hell, even usually) not at all.
Like I said--the people that are actually in the running for these jobs are a different breed. Not necessarily better, or smarter, just different. You couldn't write a computer program to mine the entire internet for actionable data to sell better ads to customers (nor do you probably care to). These guys couldn't structure a debt/equity financing or create a turnaround plan for a Fortune 500 company (nor do they probably care to). Different strokes for different folks.
It would be hard for Fitzgerald to write about programmers when the first computer wasn't invented till after he died :).
Perhaps that whiskey and cigar hangover is clouding your thinking today? Fitzgerald didn't write about programmers because computers, and hence programmers didn't exist yet. "Industrialist" is more or less a fancy word for engineer.
Those same hard-asses also donated tons of money for whiney liberal causes like art, libraries, feeding the poor, orphanages, etc.
As for hanging w/ british people in expensive clothes... you and I have very different ideas of what constitutes a good time :)
I am going to stop writing, because I am starting to think maybe I just missed your sarcasm....?
I think you're being sarcastic, but just in case, look up the exploits of Larry Ellison (CEO of Oracle). He's a techie but IMO he's among the best/most awesome examples of egomaniacal wealth we have left in this country; all that guy does is take over other companies and buy himself prestigious sporting victories (see: America's Cup).
I've got to admit though, I do have a special place in my heart for those industrialists of yesteryear.
I get his point, though. High finance is for capitalists looking to make bank. Going into tech is more about altruism and making a difference with the added bonus of making good money. High finance is more "manly", if you will. Tech is more aligned with "geeks", whether it deserves to be or not.
The difference between a tech company and a bank is that a tech company often believes in ideas for ideas' sake- not only for the sake of profit. You still see that culture at firms like Google, Amazon, and to some extent, Apple. (Although I am still reminded of the incident back in the '80s when Steve Jobs fired two developers for putting larger screens on their Macs.) It's not altruism, but some level of idealism is allowed at a tech firm. If you have a brilliant idea but don't know how it can make the firm money, Google or Amazon will let you run with it, anyways. You would never see that at a bank.
That said, tech on the west coast is a very nice lifestyle. 36 hour weeks, surfing on Friday afternoons, low stress, upper-middle-class pay, and a relaxed dress code. (One of my old college buddies told me he was wearing pajamas to work- at MSFT- when I spoke to him a few weeks ago.)
I got a couple offers from the west coast firms when I graduated and I've contemplated applying there a few times, but I enjoy playing with money too much. The whole reason I studied CS was I loved playing Railroad Tycoon and other business-empire building games in junior high and high school and wanted to help build them, but I quickly discovered that the real fun is in managing the money.
They are in the ideas business. They need innovation or they die. They believe that ideas = profits.
The barriers to entry in Tech keep dropping, especially globally.
Yeah, I knew that altruism wasn't the right word for it, but I just couldn't find a better word to replace it with. Idealism is definitely what I had in mind. Thanks for clarifying.
Prestige is highly subjective. Of course on a message board solely dedicated to finance, finance will be perceived as more prestigious than tech (or anything else), Goldman more than Wachovia Securities, KKR more than Generic Capital Partners, LLP. If you're here because you're desirious of a career, or already have a career, in finance and are attempting to stroke yourself into feeling like you have chosen the right career path by comparing your self to a computer programmer, prestige is the least of your worries. Your insecurity will ultimately be your downfall.
That being said, I agree that current conditions might have lessened the appeal of a career in finance, from the viewpoint of recent/future graduates. The brilliant masses will flock to the next opportunity where they find the highest return for their talents, be it engineering, medicine, clergy, farming... And one day, whatever reform is currently being passed will be repealed, banks will hire like crazy, and the cycle will repeat itself. But there will always be graduates who would kill their mother to walk into 85 Broad everyday. Likewise with GOOG. Is one career better than the other? Come on, that's purely qualitative. After all, this is a finance board, not a consulting board.
Just out of curiosity, what are the career prospectives for CS or related majors who have worked in the Tech company(Google, Microsoft, Facebook being the counterparts of BBs) for some years and are in their early to mid 30's? What do those people who don't make into VPs or above do?
I'd imagine they start their own companies. I've also heard that scenario is a good entry point to tech VC.
(Someone please confirm.)
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They get fired or get stuck as a manager forever.
Great stuff soitwouldseem.
It will never be cool/prestigious to be a fuckin computer programmer. Seriously, is this a joke? This is some gay techie magazine fantasizing about the day guys will walk into bars and lie and say they are database administrators to pick up sexy girls.
No one gives a shit about these fags. It may (for the time being) seem to be less cool to work on wall street, but regardless even if that 'luster' does fade it won't shift to programmers. I'm sure MIT PhD's are getting offered pretty sick and well paid jobs, but you don't seem them slaying sluts at Rose Bar.
How I see it, this is great. Its a rebalance of the college graduate labor markets. For too many years, way too many smart grads went to banking with false interests, driven by precieved prestiege and wealth. We need smart, innovative grads to go to these tech companies, learn, have their pet projects killed by corporate, and go out to start their own companies, that bankers ultimately finance or take public.
I hope CS grads or any grads for that matter do what they are interested in instead of what seems to pay the most. If MS, FB, Intel allows you to do what you have dreamed about and spent 4 years studying, plus the free food & benefits, why not go to it.
For finance guys or grads committed to going into finance, this is great. With a smaller supply of grads wanting to go into finance, we can start commanding higher pays. Remember tech bubble days? BB couldn't pay enough to get CS majors or any major to join their banks when startups were giving a golden ticket to be a millionaire in 2 years
Well, I'm entering finance because I'm genuinely interested in it. And in the long run (hell, within 5 years) finance still pays more.
If someone enjoys tech more, they should do tech. It's pretty simple.
theres definitely a longterm ceiling with CS... who gives a crap about entry level
There's a long-term ceiling for every profession. Any schmuck that thinks he's going to be pulling in $3-5 mil a year by the time he's 30 just because he's a first year analyst at a BB is full of shit and should be smacked in the face. Granted if your a rockstar and can stick with banking for 8+ years or so, you definitely have great potential, but for many people this isn't the case.
If anything, CS majors probably live a better life because their not slaves to the dangling carrot of prestige in front of their face and don't feel the need to compensate their insecurities with more useless shit such as $2000 suits and $300 cuff links; instead they roll out of bed int their xbox t-shirts and watch in awe as the suits continue to drop their paychecks to gain other people's admiration.
^ lol. Yeah just look at Steve Jobs. He's worth billions and he's always wearing a black turtle neck and levi's.
CS programmers top out at 150-200k and that's MAX.
$3-5m by 30 is a pipe dream, but $300-400k is very doable
I interned in Google's Research dept. sophomore year. Their interview was the hardest interview I have ever gone through. Straight up probabilistic algorithm design questions, even harder than D.E. Shaw. But to do actual effective research at Google, I felt that I really needed a Phd. in CS . I don't have the patience for that, and I'm really commercial at heart anyway so it was quant trading for me.
Now if you're an exceptional PhD in CS/EE from Stanford/MIT/UC Berkeley then you'll obviously do well at Google, get paid a lot, and develop connections that will serve you well should you choose to start your own firm. But if you have those qualifications, then you can also be a much more highly paid quant at many hedge funds. And ALSO develop connections that will serve you well if you choose to start your own fund.
So the choice exists, but if you're smart enough to shine at google you'll make MUCH more money on the street.
Reading this article and the subsequent comments has given me new hope in the finances of the world. These are some pretty high paying opportunities. I don't know that reaching a glass ceiling quickly is the way that anyone would want to go though.
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Guys
Finance is where its at. Someone above literally posited "You Don't Have To Live in NYC to work at Exxon"
Is this a f-ing joke? Living in NYC, best city in the world, is a privilege. Are you all a bunch of nerdy pansies? Go live in Milwaukee.
That was sort of in jest but not really - finance will always be the best. Trust me - Washington DC is not gonna win against NYC, and who cares about what some random prick thinks about finance versus Google. DAAAR I USE GOOGLE TO SEARCH FOR THINGS . cmon impressing the average person is never important
The problem with the techies is that they have no balls.
For us that's not a problem, it just means the techies can't reproduce (assuming they can get women at all). In long run equilibrium, Finance wins.
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