[123212321]

Source is I work in this field. There are positions with big data and data management that pay well. But the ones paying 350k+ are way harder to get than working at a top tech firm. Theres a quant trading firm called engineers gate that has a bunch of ivy league programmers, the top of the top. They havent made a nickel off their technology. They have a had a huge outflow of talent to Google and FB. People do get paid 500k+ to manage a firms data, but thats because the firm makes so much that the money splashes around, not because its a huge component of their profitability.

Even at Two Sigma, the engineers are second class to the quants.

[jnordwick]

If your cutoff is $350k, I'd definitely say your NYC 5k headcout is way too low. By at least an order of magnitude. Even the smallest trading firm will have 5 tech people (devs/data scientist/quants) making that much after bonus.

Edit: maybe $350k is at the border for that 5 each estimate. But i still think you're of by an order of magnitude in nyc in general.

[whatok]

If "data scientists" working at Google are considered tech roles then finance quants should be as well, right? I agree that there's a distinction between data engineers and quants but to me they're all tech roles essentially.

[123212321]

The difference is that quants make way more than regular engineers in finance. At google, an engineer working on the next generation database can make a ton of money, his work is extremely valuable to the firm. Engineering innovation is central. In finance, engineers in HFT did make a ton, but HFT is no longer very profitable.

[user5994461]

Quant is not a tech role. Quant is about maths and statistics.