Finance vs. Tech: Quantifying Happiness
We surveyed hundreds of recent grads from the top schools in the country about their job satisfaction.
Yes, we were very surprised by what we found.
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
-Confucius
At Horizons, we spend a lot of time talking to customers. Ours are current students (both undergrad and grad) as well as recent college grads who are already in the workforce. We talked to consultants, investment bankers, authors, athletes, software engineers, product managers, and more.
Over the course of hundreds of conversations, we were struck by something fascinating, and sad — the people we were chatting with were mostly unhappy.
That’s right: many of the brightest young people, graduating from the best schools in the the country are dissatisfied with their lives.
Actually let’s rephrase.
Many of the brightest young people, graduating from the best schools in the country, who have the freedom to do whatever they want in life…are still unhappy.
This intrigued us.
So we decided to do some digging. Horizons is focused on education and placing students in jobs that are right for them, so naturally, we wanted to see how people’s jobs affected their happiness.
Our methodology and findings are outlined in detail below, but we’ll give you a sneak peek of what we discovered:
Despite six-figure starting salaries, amazing brand names, and promises of more to come, millions of dollars and “upward mobility,” many people are truly unhappy with their jobs, and lives.
And the craziest thing is that it’s not everyone who is dissatisfied. Ironically, it’s the crème de la crème — the bankers and consultants who have the jobs that everyone else wants (or so it seems)— who seem to hate their careers the most.
Meanwhile, their tech counterparts seem overall quite happy with their jobs and careers.
So how did we come to this conclusion?
We surveyed hundreds of recent grads about their job satisfaction by asking the following questions:
1. How much do you enjoy your day-to-day work?
2. How much impact does your work have on your company?
3. Do you see yourself staying in this industry for the next 10 years?
And here are the results we got:
See a pattern?
People in tech seem to genuinely love their daily work, believe that what they do has tremendous impact on the companies they work at, and mostly see themselves staying in the tech industry for the next decade.
The results for finance and consulting don’t bode so well. The bankers, consultants, and PE/HF analysts of the world don’t really see their daily work is enjoyable or as impacting their firms (with finance workers feeling the pain slightly worse than their consulting counterparts). Interestingly though, people in finance see themselves staying in the industry slightly more than those in consulting (4.5/10 vs 3.9/10). These numbers pale, of course, when we compare them to tech at 7.7/10.
So what’s going on here?
Why are folks in tech so much happier than their counterparts in finance and consulting?
And perhaps more importantly, why do people continue to choose jobs they dislike in industries they don’t want to stay in?
Salaries
Money makes the world go ‘round.
Historically, finance = bottles and models in New York and tech = crashing on people’s couches in SF and living on ramen noodles.
At least that’s what many think.
There is a common misconception that finance pays way more than tech.
Well, the facts show that’s no longer true!
The two panels below depict starting salaries for a junior software engineer at Google and an investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs.
Surprise, surprise : all-in compensation is actually quite similar, with tech taking the lead when you take into account the value of Google stock.
Google Junior Software Engineer
Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Analyst
The money in tech is real. It’s high starting salaries with real chances of hitting it big. Even at startups and fast growing companies, equity offers can be quite valuable. Facebook and Twitter each created 1000s of millionaires overnight during their IPOs. Uber’s first employee is now a billionaire and there are probably 1000s of millionaires in the making. Finance has big bonuses, but the dramatic rise in SF housing prices is due to real equity value tech jobs are offering.
Money isn’t everything though. Aside from perks and work-life balance, there are more pertinent questions to consider when choosing your career path.
- Where do I see myself learning the most for the next 3, 5, and 10 years?
- Which job will offer me the best growth trajectory?
- Where can I truly make an impact?
- How fulfilling is my job?
Work culture, job mobility, better hours, and better perks are icing on the cake.
Here are a few of the other non-financial differences between tech and finance.
Hours
This one shouldn’t require too much explanation. Don’t get us wrong, you’ll still work hard in tech. But think 50–60 hours a week compared to the 80+ hours that is common in investment banking. We like to think tech folks work smart, not hard.
Work Culture
Perhaps the most fundamental difference is work culture. Putting aside what you’ve seen in movies like the Social Network and shows like Silicon Valley, we truly do believe that office culture at tech firms beats that of finance by a mile. It’s not about face time. It’s not about waiting for the VP to leave before you can sneak out to the gym. It’s not about sending emails out at 4am to impress your associate. Work in the tech world is about building and about creating value through innovation.
And of course there are the sleeping pods, cooler office spaces, better kitchens/snacks, unlimited vacations, and more. But we’ll leave that for you to experience!
Takeaways
So what do we conclude from this little study?
- Tech base salaries >= finance base salaries — Entry-level developers at these top firms clean 6-figure salaries in their first year.
- Tech leaves its counterpart in the dust when it comes to work culture, job mobility, better hours, and better perks. People feel this. On every survey metric, tech beats finance on job satisfaction and employee happiness.
- The world of technology offers an unparalleled opportunity to learn, to build, and to innovate. As a software developer, product manager, or data scientist you will have tangible (and often immediate) impacts on the products you build.
Tech wins for overall satisfaction with your work and life, whether you want to become a great product manager, engineer, sales person, marketer or entrepreneur.
Yes, we at Horizons are inclined to favor tech. But now we have an opinion that is backed by real, poignant data:
If you want to be happy, choose tech over finance.
Interested in getting a job you actually like? Apply to Horizons.
Horizons is the word’s first technology launchpad for college students — we are a coding bootcamp and career platform in one. Our mission is simple — we bring real-world, practical software development classes to college campuses and connect our students with the very best tech internship and full-time job opportunities.
