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Hi there,
Discussing salary today for an Equity Derivatives Trader Assistant role at Analyst level at JP (have been working in another analyst role for 1 year as well as an industrial placement at GS). What is the salary I should be asking for please?
Any help greatly appreciated.
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Not as many people are driven to code as you think.
- people want people- rather than screen-centric roles
- the perceived barrier to entry is high. People have pre-qualified themselves onto certain paths and dis-qualified themselves from pivoting
- inertia/momentum - when you have momentum in one field, there’s inertia to pivot to another and restart even when rewards seem more lucrative
- easy to get in to tech, hard to move up unless you’re top of the field. Wages can plateau past entry level, so people would rather stick to what they’ve deemed their best skills and grow in that field where the growth limit may be less. Top compensations in law and business often exceed top comp in engineering by a lot (don’t count CEO/CTO roles here - they’re more business than engineering)
I agree with Microsoft 1, and also there is a surplus of tech jobs right now. But unless those bootcamp grads put in the hard work to keep learning and get better, they will be the first to be laid off if such an event occurs.
Also, your friend might be an anomaly. Contrary to what you might read, most tech companies don’t pay very high (even for entry level engineers). They will give you a reasonable base and pull people in with the (often volatile and overvalued) RSU portion of the equity. If it’s a startup, you can just count that as zero. The only companies paying those huge base salaries for engineers are big tech, and you simply can’t get an engineering position there with just 3 months of a coding boot camp unless you have a damn good portfolio or interviewing skills to show for it.
I don't know if it's that much of an anomaly for bootcamp grads to make 100k+ in their first job. Plenty of bootcamp grads that I know are making that with 0 YOE. My current TC is ~200k (140k base, 50k RSU, and 5% bonus) and that's as a bootcamp grad with 0 YOE. My technical skills aren't that amazing and my interviewing skills are probably just above avg.
I have 20 years experience and make 140K in Ohio. 160K with no experience sounds crazy high to me. Reply here or message me if you have any leads or openings for remote positions over 200K. Happy to jump ship.
Yeah, I couldn't handle FAANG with the wlb that I want. But I do wonder if I could have the same wlb with 30-40k more 😅
Plus, I'm close enough to FI that I just need to stick it out.
I’m not a technical person myself but based on what I have seen at tech companies: that pay isn’t very common at entry level and it is very difficult for bootcamp grads to get traditional SWE jobs after finishing. In fact, most bootcamp folks I know have gotten other, somewhat technical roles instead (support eng, sales eng, solutions consultant, even a technical recruiter). The ones that are getting SWE jobs aren’t working at the sexy companies that pay a ton. I’ll also comment that it’s very easy to post online that you’re learning to code, but much harder to summon the motivation to practice constantly and the passion for coding. I suspect a lot of people are giving up before they get as far as your friend.
True. Maybe I’m biased in only hearing people who had landed good jobs but not those who are still looking, but many friends in SFO companies (meta , Google , snap, Uber, or Amazon lately and Msft etc ) all made more than that. But the difference is that those friends usually did LeetCode for a few months (>3) pivoting from another technical (but not coding) area.
Not sure how true this story is tbh. 3 months is absolutely not enough time to be proficient enough to add value to justify the 160k pay. But I could be wrong. What role did they land? Is it a promotion from their current role or switching to software engineering?
160k is below par for big tech in major cities, so it could be a practical total comp if they landed a new grad level role post bootcamp.
Adding that it is very competitive to get that role as a fresh bachelors/masters grad let alone bootcamp, but they could have been lucky or performed well during recruitment/interviews and everything clicked.
Sometimes those transferring from other fields have strong communications skills, etc that carry over well independant of raw coding ability.
WTF
Tell me why it’s difficult to get a job offer when there are plenty of people on fishbowl saying either “the bar is so low” or they all make $300-500k. Seriously
Maybe look into the boot camp as well ?
There are a lot of reasons someone might get hired. It could be that your friend has solid domain experience (and the coding bootcamp is secondary). Or, I've know some people who are just really good at interviewing and presenting themselves. Etc.
Labor market is very inefficient -- lots of people just don't know what their best option is or they pre-sort themselves into different tracks and don't take their blinders off
And coding really isn't for everyone, even quantitatively inclined people who like to stare at screens
Many companies hiring are not specifically looking for a lot of experience or education but are looking for those individuals that are ambitious, customer service orientated, have professionalism, and are quick-thinking. Recruiters are taking risk by investing in a new hire with this outside thinking approach but is needed in this ever-changing job market.
Manager 1 has a good point. Not everyone wants to do Tech. Plus the learning curve to become really good (and get promoted in your career) is very steep. Lots of hard abstract concepts to wrap your head around.
That said demand exceeds supply. So if someone is willing to put in the effort, the companies will pay well.
Okay hear me out. Dev jobs have the highest number of firings of any role I've ever seen. People can do a little coding here and there or have experience doing something in an adjacent languages, but fall flat om their face in other areas and ultimately fail to perform. The roles are in SUCH high demand that employers take higher risk gambles and terminate if it ends up not meeting needs.
It is a sink-or-swim environment at the vast majority places (they won't train you from zero because that takes years, you're expected to have some clue what you're doing even if you just graduated) and some, like Amazon, do rank-and-yank and fire even competent people just to meet a firing quota
Just to underscore the situation
I feel the same way about this. I can’t believe people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars and decades or schooling to be a doctor or medical professional and a coder can get same level of pay within a few years of experience and no degree. I ask my daughter and son and they say coding is boring.
Your kids are interesting 😂😂
The faang companies were paying very well because they had to compete for talent in local markets (SF, Austin and Seattle) pre pandemic. Covid blessed them with record profits and a broader talent pool, so maintaining high pay was both affordable and allowed them to cherry-pick from a new talent channel. The dynamics have changed again, with most companies testing hybrid or return to office policies. Engineers are the ones now competing for these high paying remote roles, with open requisitions easily receiving 100-200 applicants within 24 hours.
As a recently rif’d tech worker, I can tell you it’s very difficult right now. I’m getting to final round interviews 7-9 deep after weeks of interview prep and loosing out. What recruiters have shared is that the competition includes candidates who are currently performing the exact niche role at another faang company. The interview process is very difficult and places a huge emphasis on retrospective experience.
I just can’t see how a SWE or SD professional with nothing but bootcamp expertise and experience will be the company’s best and lowest risk choice in this environment where there is no longer the threat of losing out on exceptional candidates.
I would recommend that those considering a career change to check LinkedIn or Salary dot com for a better indication of compensation paid by most companies. Sure, be inspired by the tech salaries you see on levels fyi, but know that they are extending offers to <= .5% of qualified applicants.
How?! I’m a year in to my career change into a dev and I’m still making less than I did as a cop?! (I make $75k)
Because most people are lazy and don't want to put the work in. You can learn anything in 3 months, or you can also learn nothing. Question is how much effort would you put into it.
The bar is, and has been, really that low. But learning CompSci and how to code is different from other skills in that the learning curve is very steep at the beginning, so many would hit despair before they would feel any good.
Another factor is that the job arguably sucks - just sit all day in front of the computer doing nerdy things. Did you see firemen? They look amazing and also making a decent living, while saving lives... :)
Very few people coming out of a 3 month bootcamp will make $160k, let alone six figures. Your anecdote is an exception, not a rule.
The demand for SWE is higher than the supply of SWE - it’s as simple as that. Although $160K is quite high for fresh out of bootcamp. Mine was pretty reasonable at $82K
Are companies also looking for leaders within these tech teams? I have years of customer-facing experience and people management, but have lately wondered if some dev. Certifications would make me a uniquely qualified candidate? I do have the mindset and find it a nice change of pace from constant customer work but don’t want to waste my time, since it is very hard work, if it won’t add value to my career.
You can earn more with a few years experience in other fields in tech. I strongly considered a bootcamp, but they told me to expect $60-80k starting salary and I was already earning more as a senior analyst with 3 yrs experience. Instead I targeted top tech companies (FAANG) and tripled my salary with no change in experience - I now earn 195k total comp as a product growth analyst at Meta.
When you’re already in a field, starting from scratch at entry level isn’t that appealing and those bootcamps cost min $20k so you also have to count the loss of paying that off. It just didn’t make sense financially for me.
Btw I’m in Canada now so this is all CAD
162k cash (base & bonuses already received)
For many people, the idea of learning to code is scary! The technical barrier to entry seems high, even if it’s not that bad. Certainly easier than becoming a doctor. (My wife is a doctor, I’m a software engineer who graduated from a bootcamp similar to code smith in 2016.)
Good point. Although I was not a software engineer I studied in the engineering/science field, so to me it seems to be not an awfully high bar to cross but my own view is probably limited/biased.