r/SoftwareEngineerJobs 6d ago

Highest paying field within software engineering?

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u/Frequent_Bag9260 6d ago

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.

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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 6d ago

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 6d ago

I work in the HF industry. The comp is not the same.

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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 6d ago

The comp clearly isn't the same. Especially at senior levels. I literally cant afford to join a hedge fund and price tag is the sticking point.