November 7th, 2012, 10:57 pm
QuoteOriginally posted by: qqqqqQuoteOriginally posted by: ElysianEaglewow those numbers from quantnet really do look pretty low, especially considering that many of the submissions came from ppl. with PhDs or MFEs. respectable PhDs and MFEs don't come cheap, so frankly speaking i'd be pretty pissed if after all that hard work and money out of my pocket I was only making about 130 - 140K USD. i'm not saying that that is a low number in absolute terms, just that it's low considering these guys have an MFE or PhD.i know many pure developers at my iBank, those with just bachelor's degrees, making that much doing boring, mundane work. so i'm a wee bit skeptical of this survey's results. the quants i know do a good bit or programming, so given that they're offering the banks 2 skillsets (programming + financial expertise) i'm surprised the salaries aren't higher.This sounds kind of naive in the current market. There are not so many jobs for MFEs, and no one guarantees high salaries for them. If you look at MFE programs placement stats, the base salaries are at 80-90k. Then everything depends on your skills and your luck, not your MFE/PhD title.Maybe the mundane work your friends are doing is more in demand. Also, software engineers don't need PhDs, they need experience.Right! Traditionally mathematician jobs were always lower paid than programming jobs. Quant world changed that. But Quant is still 90% programming. And while programming changes all the time, quant world is sort of static in terms of basic skills needed. The notion that Quants deserve more money because they are not just IT programmers is just a spillover from good times. There are more quants available than IT programmers. Also as qqqq said IT programmers need experience and huge skill although it is not appreciated by people outside of IT hiring. And they have many more options than the financial industry and the wages are going up there.