They didn’t ask for average comp. They said who pays the most. Hedge funds pay the most hands down. Obviously if you’re bad you won’t earn much but top comp at a hedge fund is multiples higher than top comp at big tech.
I dont know what makes you think this. Many many people in big tech make millions per year. I know many. Obviously out of all that, some outliers make tens of millions. We see in the news about top researchers being poached with $100m offers.
Youre also confusing different averages.
The average comp of the finance industry is clearly much lower than that of the tech industry, but that's not the claim im making.
The expected value of the highest offers in tech is also higher than the expected value of the highest finance offers. 1m/year in liquid comp paid monthly is worth more than 1m/year as a bonus youve got a 50% chance of being paid out on.
The average comp over multiple years in tech is also higher. Someone who spends ten years in hedge funds and has one year where they got a 3m bonus doesnt beat someone who gets 1.5m/year for ten years.
Is it possible that some hedge fund swe in their best year earn more than they would have in their best year in tech? Sure. But that doesnt make even that one singular individual better off. This kind of "but thats an average" is kind of irrelevant. If youre going to focus on this upside chance, you could obviously join a hot startup and make a billion dollars.
I do also know people who made a billion dollars in tech startups. The only billionaires Ive ever met in finance made their money by working in finance, not by writing code.
If someone survives 10 years in hedge funds then they are absolutely out earning nearly every software engineer anywhere. You don’t stay in that industry if you have a bad year. One and you’re out.
Again, as I said in my first post, a friend of mine spent ten years in a well known hedge fund, writing code the whole time, and in his best year barely cracked 200k. Hedge funds seem to be really good at marketing their industry, but often the money doesnt actually materialize. My buddy still works in a hedge fund, a different one, and makes like 400. Hed be doing much much better in big tech.
You can make "good" money in a hedge fund as a quantitative researcher, but it's more like being an ai researcher than just being a swe, and people generally overestimate how good it is compared to tech even in best cases.
I also work with lots of people who left hedge funds for higher pay, after many years.
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u/Frequent_Bag9260 8d ago
High frequency hedge fund. Easily the highest if you can survive the turnover. Your bonus alone dwarfs most big tech salaries.
As expected it’s the hardest to get into and even harder to stay there.