What kinds of people are making this kind of income?

MnemoCruiser · Post by **MnemoCruiser** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 4:55 am

I heard that Wall street is giving out great bonus this year. I also get the following numbers:

Goldman Sachs: Bonus: $397,707; Salary: $261,239

Morgan Stanley: Bonus: $154,556; Salary: $103,038

Merrill Lynch: Bonus: $174,683; Salary: $116,456

Lehman Brothers: Bonus: $210,696; Salary: $140,464

Bear Stearns: Bonus: $203,077; Salary: $135,385

Do you know what kinds of people are getting these pays, traders? quants or ITs?

FDAXHunter · Post by **FDAXHunter** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 5:12 am

Those numbers look like average numbers and hence would be quite meaningless in terms of who get's paid how much (ain't no such thing as an "average employee". Most people are either above or below).

Good traders will make 10 times, in some rare cases up to 100 times of the bonus figures quoted. Quants can still make a multiple of those bonus numbers and also will command a multiple in terms of base salary.

In terms of absolute value, these numbers are close to what you would expect your run-off-the-mill analyst to make.

jaiman · Post by **jaiman** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 5:13 am

i think all those are starting comp ranges for desktop support at a major IB

edit: that seems less witty since FDAX beat me with a serious answer.

MnemoCruiser · Post by **MnemoCruiser** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 5:24 am

Run of the mill?

I am not making half of that, I guess I would have to work harder to get these kinds of running of the mill pay.

FDAXHunter · Post by **FDAXHunter** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 8:11 am

Why don't you tell us what your job is (and where) and perhaps we can elucidate why you get paid only 6 times the minimum wage.

From your comment I take it that you don't think you are working particularly hard, so maybe there's the answer already.

Bachelier · Post by **Bachelier** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 3:02 pm

I thought this initial list was for folks on the buy side, not the sell side.

My brokers and trader counterparties at those houses are easily making 5x that scale.

Baltazar · Post by **Baltazar** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 3:27 pm

This also means there is plenty of room for improvement :)

Even taking a "relatively" low multiplier (*3 let say) this is quite nice upside potentials.

I think median salary migth be more informative then mean like that as CEO, star traders and such really move the mean up.

MnemoCruiser · Post by **MnemoCruiser** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 3:59 pm

Hi FDAX,

I work very hard as a software developer supporting FI desk. My base pay matches the scale in the previous list, but the bonus I am getting is only about 20% or roughly $20K USD. The company I am with is a small one and it's not on Wall street. My job role is "supporting the desk" encompassing everything the quants don't do, sometimes I help PhD quants prepare the pricing software, rest of the time I do transaction or position management software. After looking at those Wall street average numbers, I feel depressed. I can't figure out I am in the wrong field, wrong company or wrong career path. I would really appreciate any advice as to how I can position myself to get into these bonus scale club.

signalseeker · Post by **signalseeker** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 8:53 pm

MnemoCruiser,

You might want to check out FDAX's post in the jobs section ;)

Patrik · Post by **Patrik** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 4:55 am

2 simple ones for you:

1. don't do any support, you wont get paid for it at all anyways. that's probably pretty important for a tech guy.

2. be good at what you do and position yourself to help your firm earn some big bucks.