[bearmf]

Well, total compensation, say at Google, can be around 200k for senior guys. A lot of people in finance are making less than that and so people do leave for software jobs.

As I have said before, really huge compensation levels in finance exist for VP-level people. Please keep in mind that "VP" in finance means something like "pretty senior", he might no be a manager at all. These guys have around 5 years experience and if all went well for them they can be making around 300k. These would be hard to match en masse while avoiding a situation when of two engineers doing the same job one is paid X and another 2X.