IT @ financial firms

[dwell]

I know a guy leaving our company for a spot at a financial firm. They seem to throw a lot of money at you in those environments. I know a lot of people here work at such places. How rough is it there? Is it really 60-hour weeks mandatory and ultra competitive, cut-throat?

 

[JS80]

IT is IT...you just deal with aggressive alpha males vs < 90 IQ douchebags.

 

[ultimatebob]

Hell... Just the phone interview at JPMorgan was enough to scare me off! After grinding me down to nothing during 20 minutes of questioning where seemingly NO answer was good enough for them, I have NO interest at all for working with those people.

 

[RichieZ]

i got offers from GS and UBS and decided that i'd rather go into consulting, but they do make more

 

[puffff]

finance IT can be a pretty intense. it all depends on how close you are to the business. and depending on how much your business unit is involved with real time markets and regulatory reporting requirements, your work can be very time critical.

i've had people barking at me a few times, usually because their losing money and irritable. sometimes we have network or server issues, and when the apps they rely on are slow or unresponsive, they get annoyed. you cant always blame them. they have a pretty high stress job too.

as for the hours, i personally dont have it that bad. i get in around 8, leave around 5:30.

 

[erwin1978]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
Hell... Just the phone interview at JPMorgan was enough to scare me off! After grinding me down to nothing during 20 minutes of questioning where seemingly NO answer was good enough for them, I have NO interest at all for working with those people.

What did they ask you?

 

[jaybert]

Originally posted by: erwin1978

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
Hell... Just the phone interview at JPMorgan was enough to scare me off! After grinding me down to nothing during 20 minutes of questioning where seemingly NO answer was good enough for them, I have NO interest at all for working with those people.

What did they ask you?

20 minutes? that was it? I interviewed w/ a bunch of finance interviews for tech positions (programming). goldman sachs was literally sitting in a room for 4 or 5 hours without a break, getting asked technical questions by 7 or 8 different people...the others were long, just not THAT long.

I ended up taking a job w/ a hedge fund...just started a couple weeks ago. money is amazing compared to the consulting job I was in before...hours are def longer though.

 

[Daverino]

I do IT for finance in midtown Manhattan. Pay is great, projects are fun and I work with a great team. Honestly it depends less on the company or the sector and more on the team you work for. If your boss is a prick, it's not going to matter what sector you're working in.

 

[vi edit]

Depends on the specific company. I worked for a broker as a liaison between business and IT. If they did something stupid that resulted in business having to comp back serious money to clients there was hell to pay. I've seen programmers stuck on a bridge call for over 18 hours at a time if something serious blew up.

 

[bonkers325]

Originally posted by: Chris
I know a guy leaving our company for a spot at a financial firm. They seem to throw a lot of money at you in those environments. I know a lot of people here work at such places. How rough is it there? Is it really 60-hour weeks mandatory and ultra competitive, cut-throat?

a relative works on wall st. as an IT person. 40-50 hours on-site, an additional 20-30 overtime. they rarely give him a break, his blackberry goes off often when he's at home trying to relax

 

[dwell]

Originally posted by: jaybert
20 minutes? that was it? I interviewed w/ a bunch of finance interviews for tech positions (programming). goldman sachs was literally sitting in a room for 4 or 5 hours without a break, getting asked technical questions by 7 or 8 different people...the others were long, just not THAT long.

I interviewed with Goldman for a development spot. It was brutal. They tried to rattle me to see if I could hack it under pressure. That's cool but if I had to work in an environment that pressurized I'd do it at a technology firm.

I just can't get over how much cash financial firms throw at you. I thought I was at the top of my pay scale for development but these guys are pulling nearly twice what I get + perks. Definitely tempting but not for me.

 

[hiromizu]

I work for a Japanese Wall St. firm. Our team does about 60 brutal hours a week and we're only in infrastructure. The help desk guys have it the easiest. The programmers are at it 24/7 and often stay overnight... Young guys my age <30 already have gray hair...luckily no one in my family had gray hair... There's a myth in the company that most people die before they get to retire

 

[SoulAssassin]

I did 7 years of IT work at a very large international credit card issuer...most people put in around 40 but that was it. I'm working as a consultant for the world's largest bank right now and it's about the same...maybe 45 hours for some of the people there.

 

[FoBoT]

i just did a 93 hour week, but we are not a "financial" company, not like those
we do have a cyclical business (annual cycle), my area is the lead for the year, so if i don't make my deadlines now, it can start to backup the whole IT side and then spill over to the business side if we slip too much
i haven't been able to take any vacation time the past 3 summers (while my kids are out of school), that is starting to suck pretty bad

 

[cw42]

i just finished internship doing tech stuff at a large ny consulting firm, i was there for at least an avg of 50-55hrs.