[nvarsj]

While I think salaries have gone up in recent years, I'm also going to call BS on 400k for entry level. I just looked at levels.fyi, and I'm not seeing that all. A couple unverified outliers for Citadel doesn't represent the majority of devs. I'm mostly seeing in the 100-200 region for the firms I checked, with Citadel at the top in the 200-300 region.

Also keep in mind bonuses are rarely guaranteed or part of packages, so they are completely speculative for new grads.

[comp_throw7]

It's not a "couple" of unverified outliers for Citadel, it's like half of their offers in the last few months.

It's also baseline entry-level comp at Jane Street, and Hudson River Trading goes even higher.

First-year bonuses are generally guaranteed, and after that are "speculative" in the same way that stock compensation is speculative - largely dependent on firm performance (though personal performance can actually pull it them significantly in finance, unlike with stock).

I didn't say this was the majority of devs, I said this was entry-level comp for "top-end finance shops", which is true. It is also true that there are competitors in that space which pay much less, just like there are tech companies which pay much less FAANG & Co, but does not mean that FAANG & Co don't exist or shouldn't be relevant to people's decision-making.