IBM vs Morgan Stanley - New Grad
I currently have offers from both IBM and Morgan Stanley New Grad in Canada. For a bit of context I’d like to work at a Hedge Fund in the future. The challenges, technologies, and topics such as OS, Network, low latency, optimization really interest me. I know that Morgan Stanley has a team that works on low latency and optimization but it is not guaranteed that I’ll be able to start there. The new grad position is very broad and I could be working on anything (depends on the team and timing). The work at IBM will be around full stack development, AI, and cloud solutions. They both start at the same time. IBM : ~100k TC (95k base + bonus) + 15% off on IBM stocks Morgan Stanley: 85k TC (5k sign on + 75k base + 5k bonus) Morgan Stanley pros: - opportunity (not guaranteed) to work in a field I like - 4 week training in NY paid by the company at the beginning of employment IBM pros: - TC - Better name on my resume? (Not even sure about this) Blind tax Current TC 62k
75k base salary in NY sounds brutal. IBM’s the better pick imo
Seems IBM offer is good for NY
MS is a better name imo
Really depending on if you are into Silicon Valley or NYC in the future
I’d like to work for a Hedge Fund so either NYC or Chicago
I think given your career goals, it would be a good idea to with Morgan Stanley because it is in your field of interest - finance. There is a lot of industry specific terms and culture that you will get from working at Morgan Stanley that you wouldn't be exposed to at IBM. Next, the world of finance is relatively connected, if you break into MS, you can network with people that have left to MS and gone to other banks or hedge funds. So mainly I'd choose MS for the social network, and that it will help you with your future career moves, in addition to learning the industry. IBM is a mid tier name these days, not bad, but not so amazing that I'd take it. I've heard MS and banking in general can often have antiquated technology and systems and slow change in general, from a tech standpoint, I'd guess IBM might be a bit better, but that's not your only focus. And you can learn more tech stuff on the side - Coursera, etc but there is never a replacement for building social connections. Source - e5 meta MLE in NYC with a friend in a hedge fund, girlfriend in banking as a DS.
Morgan Stanley for sure
Morgan Stanley imo, you also go through TAP program if the position is for technology analyst where you’ll do training for 4 months
I worked at IBM for 2.5 years. They're an absolute shit show. And I don't know if they still do this, but my work division was given a fixed amount of money for the VP to disperse bonuses based on her discretion. This was the standard. So once a year, we ranked our work in comparison to our coworkers, in order to argue for a higher bonus. Meaning, leadership encouraged us to shit on our coworkers contributions to the company, every year just before Christmas. That shit was stupid and it sucked. The process for deploying a change to production was inefficient, bureaucratic, and in some instances downright bullying. Code bases and data models were bloated as fuck with tribal knowledge that devolved into "don't touch that, nobody knows how it works". I know nothing about Morgan Stanley. Finance tends to expect longer hours and more quickly reward talent.
FYI the 15% off stocks will not last. I expect it to be gone by this time next year
@geauxlang why's that? Curious whether they have a history of going back on the program
how likely are you to be in one of those low latency trading teams? I assume you are into the flash boys co-location zero garbage collection lock-free stuff, very few teams do that, equities and fx, not even rates needs that much speed
That’s what I am wondering. I know that Morgan Stanley has team that work on low latency trading but I don’t know how big they are / how easy it is for new grads to join. I’ve emailed my recruiter to get more familiar with the onboarding process and the different projects I can hop on.
all banks have those teams, even if you are on those teams, you may not be assigned the tasks that you want to do, all bank projects have a ton of dead end tasks that no one wants to touch, people will try to take the good projects and leave you with all the leftover shit that no one wants to touch
I've worked for 5 years in IBM India. A complete sh!t company. Not sure how it's in Canada.