[datamatt]

>The banks care less about their qualifications than their work ethic. Being a Rhodes Scholar doesn't make much of a difference when you're a young banker. More of it is being willing to stay at the office for 120 hours a week.

This is very, very true. In my experience, investment banking is by no means a particularly difficult thing to do, given enough capital to play around with. Quants aside, the concepts that are used (take, for example, "mezzanine capital") are mostly buzzwords used to give a professional air to really very simple processes/ideas. It is a far cry from the serious, dedicated abstract thought demanded by fields such as software engineering/machine learning/data science etc.

However, what large financial institutions need are people who are extremely assiduous to small details, have a work ethic in which 7am-11pm hours creating powerpoints are no big deal (and have good sounding qualifications to impress investors).

[w4]

> Quants aside, the concepts that are used (take, for example, "mezzanine capital") are mostly buzzwords used to give a professional air to really very simple processes/ideas.

This is incredibly accurate. Aside from the guys who come out of MIT and Caltech to do quantitative analysis, almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas. Even a lot of the ostensibly esoteric and complex products (that a lot of the Wall Street guys don't understand!) hide a really simple core concept once you peel back the layers of jargon.

[ProAm]

> almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas

This is true for the majority of jobs out there.

[gaius]

Especially programming jobs.

[hnnewguy]

>"almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas"

Because Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram and Farmville are complex ideas?

Nearly every good idea looks "simple" in hindsight. That's what makes it a good idea.

[ProAm]

These all started simply, I promise you

[gaius]

It is a far cry from the serious, dedicated abstract thought demanded by fields such as software engineering/machine learning/data science etc.

99% of software work is straightforward too. Here's a form for entering data. Here's a report for formatting data someone else entered. Every website is just these two concepts that have been around since the 60s. Don't kid yourself that a "full stack developer" or a "rockstar ninja" is anything special.

[jpfuentes2]

There are lots of programming jobs out there that are outside of the web/CRUD development realm.

[eli_gottlieb]

But there's a lot more that aren't.

[a_c_s]

How necessary are the 7am-11pm hours really? Could the banks do just as good of a job if they hired more people who worked 40 hour weeks? (Increased salary costs notwithstanding)

[seferphier]

I work at a law firm specializing in IPO. I had the same thought in mind when I joined.

Hiring more people does help but there will still not be 40 hour work weeks. In many instances, some people in the team has built up the knowledge on a particular part of the deal that it is difficult to outsource since it would be much faster for the person to complete the work themselves.

Hiring more people also means that the information is diffused around. If one person working on a deal it means that he knows 100% about the deal. If 100 people is working on the same deal, efficiency would greatly decrease as knowledge management becomes important (lots of emails).

[a_c_s]

Thanks for the info! Is the demand for detailed knowledge 16 hours at a time, or is it more like being "on call" for when a client suddenly gets a wild idea and wants numbers to be run for it?

[salemh]

From interviews by folks on Wallstreetoasis.com, this is my understanding of the hours. Some days they may have 2-4 hour breaks (gym time / internet time), then have to crunch in the evening when a client, or an internal-facing client (such as a Managing Partner) comes back.

In my short time at a small consulting firm (Management / C level), this was also the case.

Many times my long hours were due to "deliverables" (PowerPoints, documents, etc.) being in a choke point based on an Analyst, Consultant, etc.

E.g., waiting on numbers to finish a presentation.

However, much of the time, their is ALWAYS something to do, and much of it is very much face-time (butts in seats = working).

[rdrdss23]

Sounds like they need oil-rig hours. 2 weeks on, 1 week off. Or something to that effect. Make people work insane hours, but give them 2-3 months of vacation a year.

[rayiner]

I'm going to disagree with the other posters. At least in investment banking, the hours are driven by the pace of corporate transactions. Mergers and divestitures are fragile things, and there is a tremendous incentive to get them done as quickly as possible. Investment bankers are at the service of their clients, and when the client wants someone to run the numbers on some idea on Thursday evening so he can have them for a meeting Friday morning, the bankers have to get it done. And that work has to be done by the people who have intimate knowledge of the deal, not some night-shift crew. Companies paying tens of millions of dollars in bankers' fees demand a certain level of service.

[ForHackernews]

> Mergers and divestitures are fragile things

Why is that the case? Is it just human nature and people are weird and illogical?

It seems to me like if a deal makes business sense at Friday at 11:30 pm, it will still make financial sense next Tuesday at 10:30 am.

[rayiner]

I imagine at least one major problem is avoiding a bidding war by competing buyers.

[thecage411]

"Working insane hours is a sign of commitment, of willingness to sacrifice for the job; the personal destructiveness of the practice isn’t a bug, it’s a feature."

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/three-piece-suit...

[nymph]

Everyone knows the hours are bullshit, and actually impair productivity and judgement.

But they're there to serve a Higher Purpose: to engender classic, Stockholm Syndrome endearment -- and unquestioned obedience.

[Spooky23]

Not very. I knew someone who did that for awhile. He basically spent most of his time screwing around with his iPhone.

[james1071]

It is something of an arms race. Bank A has an army of slaves who will work round the clock in order to impress the clients, so bank B does the same.

[dba7dba]

> However, what large financial institutions need are people who are extremely assiduous to small details, have a work ethic in which 7am-11pm hours creating powerpoints are no big deal (and have good sounding qualifications to impress investors).

The problem is Wall Street is sweeping up a THIRD of Ivy league graduates. This no doubt causes harm to US economy. Can you imagine what a young really bright scientist/engineer can do putting in 120hr/week at a stretch? They probably couldn't produce something amazing soon but learn enough skill that they can be producing something that really adds value to the society. But that's not happening because Wall Street sweeps up so many.

[austinz]

A "young really bright scientist/engineer putting in 120/hr weeks at a stretch" is a recipe for mental illness, low-quality output, and burnout.

[eli_gottlieb]

That doesn't mean it isn't normal for the early stages of a STEM career (grad school, post-doc, pre-tenure professorship) to demand such work-ethic.

[dba7dba]

You see, with enough money and some buzzwords, anything can look incredibly important/hard.