Don't confuse salary with total pay.
Salary is about $150k, bonus is around 10-15%, stock takes 4 years to vest, you might average $100k of stock over your first 4 years there but you cant just say thats part of your first year comp
Top quant PhDs are getting $400k pay packages
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Noone has to 'imagine' anything, these arent secretive hedge funds that employ 10 people. There are literally thousands of PhDs working in FAANG companies and the numbers are basically public and well known.Look these companies are paying way more than you can imagine. A STANDARD offer for an engineer with 4-5 years of experience is 300k. For a top PHD it is also that. Fresh out of school in undergrad can be as high as 200k. Engineering managers at FB make 500k. People are paying exorbitant amounts of money for top programming talent, the business people in america scoff at this. The time is up for everyone but technical talent and the few who make it to the top of business.
Netflix pays 400-500k CASH for senior engineers.$300k for an engineer with 4-5 years of experience is definitely at the high end, but certainly possible if they are good. However a PhD is not equivalent to 5 years of experience, and as such they do not get paid anything near $300k. Its bizarrely arrogant to think that running regressions/neural nets/whatever in your basement for 5 years would be viewed as equivalent to actually spending 5 years in industry delivering products.
PhDs get paid a bit more than undergrads as a starting salary, but not much more. Having a PhD is in no way comparable to having 5 years of industry experience, its just dumb to think otherwise.
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Don't confuse salary with total pay.
Salary is about $150k, bonus is around 10-15%, stock takes 4 years to vest, you might average $100k of stock over your first 4 years there but you cant just say thats part of your first year comp
Nonsense. Bonuses for quants are expected at 50-100%. Signing can be 100% over 3 years. If you were right, then it would imply that academics are paid far more. That's absurd. Typical fresh PhD at top 50 finance department makes upwards of $300k counting 2/9. Your numbers are bogus.
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Don't confuse salary with total pay.
Salary is about $150k, bonus is around 10-15%, stock takes 4 years to vest, you might average $100k of stock over your first 4 years there but you cant just say thats part of your first year comp
The stock is as good as cash
1) No it isnt, you lose it if you leave the company. Tech companies have very high turnover rates, commiting to stay at a place for 4+ years is actually a really big deal.
2) Google stock has a 4 year vesting period. If you 'get' $100k in stock in year 1, you dont actually get to cash it in until year 4. So in practice its essentially your 4th year bonus, not part of your 1st year comp.
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Don't confuse salary with total pay.
Salary is about $150k, bonus is around 10-15%, stock takes 4 years to vest, you might average $100k of stock over your first 4 years there but you cant just say thats part of your first year comp
Nonsense. Bonuses for quants are expected at 50-100%. Signing can be 100% over 3 years. If you were right, then it would imply that academics are paid far more. That's absurd. Typical fresh PhD at top 50 finance department makes upwards of $300k counting 2/9. Your numbers are bogus.
1) That post was about google, not hedge funds (although hedge fund numbers are pretty similar)
2) Quants dont get 50-100% bonuses in year 1 lol
3) Academic finance salaries are higher than tech salaries and comparable to hedge fund salaries in year 1 and 2. Hedge funds have more medium/long term upside. -
4) tech companies and quant funds typically target CS PhDs, and CS academic salaries are much lower than finance (round $100-150k/year for a fresh PhD). Do you really think that a hedge fund is going to pay someone an extra $100k in their first year just because their PhD is in finance rather than CS?
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Median pay at FB is $250k. MEDIAN. That means half make more. PhDs in finance from top schools are not in the bottom half of earners. Ridiculous.
Its amazing you cant understand that someone with 0 years of experience is going to get paid less than average.
You are seriously overestimating the value of a PhD. No, having a PhD and 0 years of experience doesnt get you a higher salary than a Stanford CS undergrad with 5 years of serious experience.
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4) tech companies and quant funds typically target CS PhDs, and CS academic salaries are much lower than finance (round $100-150k/year for a fresh PhD). Do you really think that a hedge fund is going to pay someone an extra $100k in their first year just because their PhD is in finance rather than CS?
I don't think. I know. Read the title and OP. That is direct from recruiting firm data.
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Don't confuse salary with total pay.
Salary is about $150k, bonus is around 10-15%, stock takes 4 years to vest, you might average $100k of stock over your first 4 years there but you cant just say thats part of your first year comp
The stock is as good as cash
1) No it isnt, you lose it if you leave the company. Tech companies have very high turnover rates, commiting to stay at a place for 4+ years is actually a really big deal.
2) Google stock has a 4 year vesting period. If you 'get' $100k in stock in year 1, you dont actually get to cash it in until year 4. So in practice its essentially your 4th year bonus, not part of your 1st year comp.You dont lose it if you leave LOL. You only lose whatever that last month is. One year cliff and then you get monthly installments after that.
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Don't know how much Facebook or Google pays, but I know that you have to live in a place with exorbitant cost of living (even by NYC standards). It's OK if you are some kid just of out college, but terrible if you are a grown up.
I have however connections in the quant finance world and they generally pay less than top 50 academia for a rookie. It's generally just supply and demand, since supply for quant job is much larger than t50 finance AP.
Obviously the upside potential is very different, since at HFs sky is the limit.
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Don't know how much Facebook or Google pays, but I know that you have to live in a place with exorbitant cost of living (even by NYC standards). It's OK if you are some kid just of out college, but terrible if you are a grown up.
I have however connections in the quant finance world and they generally pay less than top 50 academia for a rookie. It's generally just supply and demand, since supply for quant job is much larger than t50 finance AP.
Obviously the upside potential is very different, since at HFs sky is the limit.The cost of living thing is overrated, NYC and the bay area are expensive, but not to the point where $300k wont give you a baller quality of life.
The people talking about $300k+ starting salaries are being silly, but you'd definitely get that much after 3-4 years if youre good.
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You dont lose it if you leave LOL. You only lose whatever that last month is. One year cliff and then you get monthly installments after that.
uh no, google stock has a 4 year vesting period
obviosuly you dont lose stock options that have vested, but you lose unvested when you leave
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It's generally just supply and demand, since supply for quant job is much larger than t50 finance AP.
You are right, in general, but you got it backwards for top talent. Supply of TOP talent (i.e., those who can get t50 finance AP) is very small and demand is higher in industry because there are a lot more firms in search of TOP quants than t50 academic departments.
t50 finance departments have demand for roughly 50 AP in a given YEAR. Some hire multiple APs, some hire none. On average, roughly 1 new AP hired per year.
Far more than 50 AM firms searching for TOP talent and they search YEAR-ROUND, not just in January. Fresh PhDs from TOP schools have been brainwashed into believe academia is more prestigious. AM firms have to pay a prestige premium to entice these graduates into taking industry position instead of t50 academic offer. They do this with massive signing bonuses and GUARANTEED 1st and 2nd year bonuses of 50-100% of base plus many other perks. The TOP finance phd graduates from TOP schools are getting 400k total pay in YEAR 1.
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You dont lose it if you leave LOL. You only lose whatever that last month is. One year cliff and then you get monthly installments after that.
uh no, google stock has a 4 year vesting period
obviosuly you dont lose stock options that have vested, but you lose unvested when you leavelike a typical offer might be $400k stock with a 4 year vesting period. If you leave in year 1 then you get nothing. If you leave in year 2 then you only get a small amount (20-30% or something, idk offhand)
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No it is not overrated. You clearly don’t have kidS. If your wife does not work, 300K translates into a house at a mediocre schools district at best.
Don't know how much Facebook or Google pays, but I know that you have to live in a place with exorbitant cost of living (even by NYC standards). It's OK if you are some kid just of out college, but terrible if you are a grown up.
I have however connections in the quant finance world and they generally pay less than top 50 academia for a rookie. It's generally just supply and demand, since supply for quant job is much larger than t50 finance AP.
Obviously the upside potential is very different, since at HFs sky is the limit.The cost of living thing is overrated, NYC and the bay area are expensive, but not to the point where $300k wont give you a baller quality of life.
The people talking about $300k+ starting salaries are being silly, but you'd definitely get that much after 3-4 years if youre good. -
No it is not overrated. You clearly don’t have kidS. If your wife does not work, 300K translates into a house at a mediocre schools district at best.
The median home in marin county costs $1.1m, thats affordable on a $300k salary. Its not like its difficult to save up for private school on that salary anyway, you only need about $140k per kid and you have 16 years to save that up.