I’ve spent most of my time in technical roles at tech companies (FAANG and mid-size), but am curious about finance. My main motivations would be: 1. Increase TC / fix down-leveling 2. Better WLB 3. Better job market (at least these days) 4. Ironically better respect for technical work that actually solves problems instead of politicking. 5. Aware I’ll have to sacrifice some cushy benefits for the above but think it could be worth it. My main questions are: A. Is finance actually any better along these dimensions? Or is this just because I currently work at Meta, which is not doing well across those dimensions? B. Does finance generally have better or worse job security than tech? (US citizen here, no visa needed) C. Are colleagues in finance smarter, better-trained, or more experienced than their tech counterparts, or the other way round (assume similar hiring bar)? Which has more clowns and which has better learning opportunities? Blind tax: IC4, $250K
Healthcare pay is low compared to tech ime
Experience with both. Finance is better for job stability and TC. Tech is better for WLB, interesting work, and benefits.
Not sure about TC. If OP went to JP Morgan, Citi or even Goldman he won’t get paid nearly as much as he currently does at Meta. Fintech maybe
Experienced with both, about 50% over 10 years. In tech now, most of my time is spent interacting with finance external tech people, too. I’ve hired 350+ in finance tech and about half of that within tech (it’s harder, lol). In my experience, 95% of the finance tech folks I deal with want to move from finance to tech, and maybe 1-5% in tech want to move into finance. And, if so, it’s usually because they spent most of their career there and were global directors and kingdom builders. In tech, you have better: benefits, WAY less politics, bonus and comp relative to performance, easier promo path, extremely higher quality engineering types, kinder people, cooler products. In finance, you have: opportunity to build a kingdom of loyalists, harder promo path due to mainly time vs. merit, lower pay than tech (especially if you are not a leader), extreme cutthroat politics and always watching your back (the culture promotes this) and the stability is hit or miss. I used to sit next to the RIF department and I can’t even tell you how often the laid off folks were impacted because they barked up the wrong tree or made an enemy that went after them vs. the impacted person just doing a bad job. I wouldn’t count on stability being better in finance than tech at all. It can be a little recession resistant but it really depends in which area of a firm you join. Investment banking orgs pay better and have higher bonuses than anywhere else in the bank. The culture is borderline toxic at senior level, but doable at low to mid-senior level. Get used to transfers happening like musical chairs - managers transfer low performers to other teams vs. laying them off or training them and people tend to follow senior leadership from firm to firm (kingdom building) for the pay bumps/title increases vs. being hired on abilities. That always makes lower level folks upset and causes frequent sudden reorganizations, too. Bonuses are tied largely to how much your +2 leadership likes you. Btw my experience is as a top performer in both industries. I’m not bitter or anything, and I talk to like a hundred friends from finance regularly at least. But, it’s not a good environment and the comp isn’t either. Also, the HR teams in finance are much less lenient and will help push you out vs. supporting employees like they do in tech. And you’ll have to do hours and hours of boring training every other month due to it being highly regulated. The regulation zaps innovation, speed, ability to effect change, and keeps a boring culture. At the same time, there are some similarities between the two - global reach, scale, and working on consumer facing products. However tech does finance stuff, whereas finance rarely/poorly barely touches any other area besides finance. My suggestion is definitely stay in tech. Maybe work for a different tech company doing finance stuff instead. Good luck! ☺️
Thanks for the very detailed answer! Super helpful and exactly what I needed. Based on your experience, I think I will end up staying in tech and will just focus on leaving Meta, which seems to have a lot of the same negatives as finance (cutthroat, relatively highly regulated, boring, toxic, unstable, lower pay after stock drop). We do still have some very cushy benefits, but I am just desperate for a change after the company seemed to self-destruct starting around a year ago.
What's your thoughts on current layoffs? Will demand for sde decline in future?
I'm glad I moved to tech. Soft skills count a lot more in finance. If you're good at it, great. If you're not, you'll get frustrated. I think tech is more objective, that's why I chose tech.
Soft skills are ok to good, but objectivity is something I care about
then stay in tech. I think in tech is like 30% soft / 70% objectives in finance is like 80% soft / 20% objectives. In promotions and everything, objectives still matter, but soft skills matter a lot more
Worked in finance (consumer bank & lending) for two different companies (one fortune 20 other fortune 400) for the last 6 years and based on your main motivations, finance isn't really better 1. TC - Compared to tech, TC is not even close in finance unless you are in Investment banking. Individual contributors don't get equity or larger bonuses unless you are that 1 person in the bank that everyone sees of joining the C-Suite one day. typical merit raises is going to be 3% with 10% bonus and no equity for someone IC5 or below comparatively. My comp is $150K with 8 years of experience and also being a top performer wherever I have been . promotions are hard to come by cause most finance organizations are already mature and there is not room like tech to get promoted too and also of arcane and rigid time at institution rules 2. WLB - this depends on the visibility of your team and how good you are at setting boundaries 3. Better job market - only true if you are in certain segments and are a top half performer. I would assume it would be similar in tech too 4. Politics & Technical work - there is a lot more politics in finance. not only you have to do top level work but it also has to be very visible and impactful to get any monetary recognition. that means you need to have you ditector+ person to be familiar with your work, amazed by it and willing to put themselves in line for you. technical work isn't that technical as compared to tech (assumption). When it comes down to it, banks are a brick and mortar business and due to that there is a lot that is harder to do. something like experimentation outside of online marketing is a monumental task. Due to regulations, there is a lot that can't be done. Something like building a marketing targeting model will take months to go to production cause you need to spend months going through model validation 5. Benefits - tbh depending on the institution this is going to be similar except the free food. health insurance premiums + costs are going to be higher but pto & 401k match similar 6. This is a guess but I am assuming colleagues are going to be very similar. The distribution of smarter/better trained/more experienced should be the same I am trying to get into tech purely for the TC. I haven't managed to crack the interview yet even though I have come close couple of times. I don't interview well and haven't practiced leetcode enough to be able to comfortably. I believe I should be able to pull a TC of $300K+ if I manage to crack it
Thanks also for the detailed response. Based on your experience I’m also more motivated to stay in tech, though the finance I was thinking of was more HFT. Best of luck cracking the interview! I’d think with a finance background you should be fine passing the behavioral part, so yeah, just leetcode until your eyes bleed and you should eventually make it.
if you were talking HFT then I guess all I said doesn't line up. you most likely make more TC, get to work with more technical work but the tradeoffs is going to be WLB which might be worse. All guesses as I dont know shit about them 😅
Have experience with both. If you thought tech bros were full of themselves, wait till you experience finance. People still working with spreadsheets and calling it technical work. There is no experience and little smarts to be found in the finance field. Only go if you want to get your English and PPT skills polished. On the other hand, if you want to experience a new field, healthcare is as techy as big tech companies, and stable market now.
Healthcare is a good rec, thanks. Does it pay as well as finance and tech? That could be a deal-breaker.
@wasteof02 come work on wall st you will find how street smart and well qualified people are unlike tech