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Where should I work as a computer science major?

Is a tech company really a much better place to work at for a Computer Science major than a finance firm?

  • I've been hearing about companies like Two Sigma which really sound like tech companies - reasonable working hours, mostly consisting of programmers, valuing technology a lot etc. I wonder why people keep saying Computer Science people won't be valued just as much as in tech firms.

  • Answer:

    It really depends on what you want. In tech companies, you generally have a larger impact as you're directly contributing to the core product of your company. In most finance companies, their revenue and business is probably things like investment banking, stock trading etc etc and what you would be doing might just be supporting them. This might not be extremely integral to the company and they might take you for granted. Also, chances are, the people you're working with might not be the best in the industry as they tend to work in tech companies and working with less smart people than you means you won't like your work.. For a lot of good CS students, working with smart people is the first crirterion when choosing a workplace. If you don't mind that and want just a higher pay and wearing suits to work, you might prefer finance. But otherwise, I would definitely recommend working in a tech company to any CS student. Of course, this varies a lot with the size of the company and its culture (I know some finance firms which treat their programmers better than some tech consulting companies).

Rahij Ramsharan at Quora Visit the source

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Two Sigma is an anomaly on Wall Street.  Most finance companies treat developers like interchangeable cogs, while Two Sigma is more like a tech company.  I've worked on Wall St as a developer for five companies across sixteen years.  Two Sigma was the only one I was unhappy to leave.

Colin Rafferty

It's not a matter of how much software engineers are valued. I think it's more about different expectations about how different types of employees are rewarded, given the value they provide. A company that predominantly employs software engineers will better understand how to keep them happy than one that predominantly employs financial accountants.I previously worked as a software engineer for a company where the majority of the employees worked in manufacturing and operations. For those who worked on the manufacturing side, they had incredible perks -- fantastic health care options, retirement benefits, 2 weeks of sick leave, and 2 weeks of paid vacation -- all of which are very high standards in this industry. However, most software engineering shops offer significantly more vacation time, but perhaps not as many retirement or health benefits. Even though financially it probably evened out, the biggest gripe from our software engineers was that other employers offered their software engineers at least twice as much vacation time.

Kimberly Johnson

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