Some of you are looking for new jobs or thinking of moving to finance. Probably HFT or Quant Finance if you're on here. Thought I'd share some things about GS to know before coming here. - Tech is a second class citizen here, even on front office "strat" teams. In the last 10 years you'd make more at FANG than at GS. Most of you already know that though - Compensation usually goes down in your second year if you get a sign-on bonus for your first. It's not uncommon to get a 0 annual bonus in February - There's a lot of office politics. Even more than at Big Tech. How people perceive you becomes how good you are at your job here - You don't need to be super smart to succeed here. But you do need to put in long hours. The closer you are to the money, the longer your hours in general. 50-60hrs per week for front office teams, potentially more. - What is the front office? Well it's the only part of the bank actually worth joining to be honest. It's any job that directly generates revenue. So trading, sales, investment banking. If you're a software engineer the closest equivalents are working on trading strategies, on the trading platform, or on a consumer product with heavy investment like Marcus. There are software engineering teams here that are more selective than FANG. But they never actually have the word "tech" in their names and belong to a revenue generating division, not core engineering. - GS underpays relative to the market. They think part of your compensation is having GS on your resume and the doors it opens. And any compensation over 250k is vested over several years in GS stock. - Just because you work long hours doesn't mean you get a lot done. Stuff is always breaking and productivity is hampered by very poor tooling and devops - The code quality is better than most non-FANG companies, but worse than tech industry for sure - People here are really smart, though talent is often concentrated in specific teams. Choose carefully which team you join - Historically, annual peer feedback is submitted in July and performance quartiling is done in October. GS has recently switched to a 25% exceed expectations, 65% meets expectations, 10% underperforms model though. Historically 10% of the company gets laid off every year in March/April to make room for interns and new analysts. It's not uniform though, and certain teams in businesses that underperform will take more of a hit. Join after April and you get to skip the official performance review, meaning you don't get official feedback for a year and a half - Bonuses are based on firm performance, then division performance, then business unit performance, then team performance, then individual performance. In practice it's just however much your manager is willing to pay you to keep you. Zero bonus is a sign you're at risk of getting laid off in the spring. - Everyone uses Windows here and there are no laptops - There are VPs who get paid less than analysts here. So don't read much into your title. Most engineers are VPs and making MD is a big deal. And yes, you can get a title promotion and no change in pay. - It takes 3 years to go from analyst to associate, and another 3 to go from associate to vp. These promos are pretty much automatic, though if you're a top performer it can be possible to make the promo in 2 years. - There are good managers and bad managers here, just like any other company. But even the "good" managers might think it's normal to schedule a 7am meeting with the team just because it's what they're used to - Why are they used to poor work-life balance? Because many people here spent most of the careers at GS or joined straight out of school. The prestige and perceived security of GS keeps them here. Or maybe they're trapped in a work visa. A lot of employees don't know what's out there because they've never ventured out - There are people who stay here a long time though. I've met many employees who've worked here for 10+ years. There is a strong focus on training new people and that is a part of the culture here. - Plenty of people leave though. From both the junior and senior levels. Last year there's been a lot of change with many senior executives "retiring" and getting replaced by the new CEO. This is unprecedented here but it's opened the door to new talent and GS hires from FANG much more often than before - Believe it or not, GS does open doors in finance, including quant finance. You have to be on the right team and with the right skillset though. In other words, if you want those opportunities you need to be doing the same kind of work at GS before you move. There are plenty of people who've moved here to Citadel in quant research or trading roles. Those jobs generally pay a lot higher than developer roles in finance because they're closer to revenue generation. I do know two people who moved from back office here to a hedge fund though, so there are exceptions. - But if you're in FANG right now, think carefully before you join. It's easier to get into GS as a SWE than at FANG, and most likely the team you're joining is not the one that's going to open the doors you want opened. A good sign though is if you're joining a team where coworkers have worked on the buyside (GS is a sell-side IB). If you're in Big Tech and want to switch to finance it might be better to just go for the buyside immediately as a SWE, then later on transition to a revenue generating role once already there - Get everything in writing. By now you know that bonus is discretionary and not guaranteed. Recruiters will promise you the moon if it means a successful hire - Most people are friendly here, in my experience at least. This varies a lot by team, but GS has a consensus driven culture. It's okay to disagree but you have to be polite about it. Open aggressiveness is not the norm here - On average employees here have better social skills than at FANG because we do look for soft skills in the interview. The technical hiring bar is lower of course. - A lot of new employees come from prestigious colleges due to how we handle hiring, especially for front office roles - No free food, in general benefits are decent but don't expect tech industry perks - Regulation has hurt profits significantly over the past 12 years, so don't expect things to turn around too quickly - Once you work here you have to disclose all your trades in the stock market and there's a minimum holding period that limits how often you can buy or sell stocks - A lot of people (including engineers) are in good shape here and exercise / take good care of themselves. But also many people have terrible work life balance and just spend all their time either at work or the office gym. - A lot of engineers are in Bengaluru though they adjust their work hours to align with NYC market hours. Either way international calls with London, Hong Kong, and Bengaluru can potentially be a common source of early mornings and late nights depending on team - This is still the best investment bank though. Even if they come second place in certain areas everyone perceives GS as the best so there is still a big gap between GS and Morgan Stanley / JP Morgan in terms of reputation - GS is pushing a return to office strategy with most employees going into the office in rotations starting October 2020. They value face-time and appearances so no surprises here. If you like WFH please keep that in mind. They did keep their promise to not lay anyone off during the pandemic (humane of them, especially for an investment bank), though soon there's definitely going to be a layoff cause we have one every year. - That's all I've got for now. Hope this helps people considering GS or finance. I see a lot of questions around here and figured it'd be good to clear up some of the rumours with facts. Personally I've been leetcoding and am ready to leave soon. #finance #trading #quant #banking #hft
Wow thanks for the detailed insights OP
Thanks op!
Whew what a thorough post. Now this is the content I wish there were more of.
Thanks for detailed post, appreciated :)
How is new grad strats team in GS Dallas/Salt Lake City? Compared to FAANG?
Systematic market making team in SLC is solid. They work on forex strategies and trading systems. Afaik they're launching a couple of strats team in Dallas, mostly in fixed income and regulatory strats. Haven't heard much about them though.
Will someone from a non finance background get a chance to interview for these roles?
I am getting an offer from Ion eplatform team for strats profile to work as a java developer and also I have joined a US based recent Unicorn. GS is offering very high though than this start-up. What should I do? P.S. my offer is in Bangalore.
Regarding GS offer, is the annual bonus written in the offer contract? Even if it is written, it is usually fixed only for first year.
In offer letter it would be only the fixed salary and not the bonus.
This is the most detailed post. Thanks op. I can attest that every thing you said is right and I have experienced them by staying there for 7 years. I have seen some ppl do contradict otherwise and I will post this thread for their clarity. I wish you all the best for your leetcode nand gtfo ;)
How’s VMWare in contrast? Currently interviewing with them. I hear it’s better, what’s your experience been?
So far it's better and I am quite satisfied with the jump although I have just joined 2 months back. Pros Better tech stack ( much much better ) Technical folks Good wlb ( somewhat slow ) Good pay ( i was lowballed at gs badly for several years ) Good tech documentation Cons Not as aggressive as gs, so a bit boring sometimes. Will not have gs like bonus culture Some teams are not that much profitable so risk of getting layoffs in future is more
As an incoming analyst (technology), do you think MS is good place to stay for 2-3 years? I chose Morgan stanley because of their ease in h1b sponsorship + L-1 opportunity but im planning move to FAANG or a high tc tech company once i get my H1B. Will there be decent exit opportunities in general?
Most medium/big tech companies can provide that opportunity already. I’d recommend looking for other places right now or even a couple months after you start. Why wait for H1B transfer when moving on OPT is so much easier?
Interesting. I have a recruiter from GS that keeps reaching out. If I leave JPMC I don’t think it will be for another bank. I work in technology.
Don't. I'm of the mentality that when I leave Goldman, it won't be for another bank. Hope it's soon 🤞🏻
I dont think anyone in FANG ever considers joining GS (or any bank for that matter) lol. Banks are the backup plan when you cant get into any half decent tech company.
I guess it depends what they’re looking for. Nobody joins banks for TC, but I know people who have chosen banks when they have opportunities to work closely with strats. Obviously many people get ahead just by being ex-FB or the like, but I’ve often found that Wall Street is a smaller world than it seems- plenty of people I know of have gotten opportunities they wanted thanks to taking roles at firms that aren’t as technologically revered as FANG (like GS and JPM). I’d agree that it may not be the best strategy, though.
Yeah imagine a new grad receive a 180k offer from F/G and 100k offer from GS and be like "nah GS is better because they say so". Anyone that gullible would not be working in FANG.