[nerfhammer]

Difference being engineers don't get paid as much – though perhaps they should be.

Finance guys are much more aggressive about capturing more of the revenue they create in salary and bonuses, while engineers seem to shrug at being "overpaid" while letting proportionally more of their value go to execs, investors and giant cash hoards.

[kasey_junk]

I have not seen that to be the case. As a software developer in the HFT trade I make about the same as I would working for google. If the firms I work for take off or have particularly good years, I might make a lot more than the google salary bands, but it would be about the same as if I were an early employee (but not founder).

Now if you are talking about ibank traders who HFT are replacing, that is true. Their salary bands are enormously higher than engineer pay scales. Sort of explains why they direct so much vitriol towards HFT.

[hkmurakami]

In general though, finance firms (at least the publicly traded ones where we can see their books) reserve a higher proportion of revenue for compensation compared to tech firms. Not entirely sure at HFT shops, but I think that may be what the grandparent comment may be referring to (and I agree that we could do better if our goal were to be more equitable -- but no one has an incentive to do this on a grand scale yet)

[kasey_junk]

That's the thing. There are only a couple of publicaly traded HFT firms and they are tiny. Their compensation looks more like a technology firm than a "finance" firm.

Remember, that the vast majority of people who make large compensation in a finance firm are essentially sales force. They are selling complex products, financial services, or operations.