What is it like to work as a technology analyst at Goldman Sachs?

I am sure everyone will have their own unique experience. But from my experience, for a techie guy, Wall Street sucks. I was working for a startup in Silicon Valley before joining one of the most reputed financial firms at Wall Street (Both positions being that of data scientist). I was very happy at a startup and finished a year before deciding to move on. So what happened? Exactly one month after I joined this financial firm I was again interviewing with another hardcore major technology company in Silicon Valley where I will be moving in a month's time frame. So, I am not yet in the position to compare something like Google to Goldman Sachs. But I definitely can say Wall Street sucks for people driven with passion for technology and innovation. First, we have to wear formal except on fridays. Which is not a big deal, but when someone tells you that you cannot wear "this" or do "that" then of course, it sucks. Second, too many legacy issues. After joining I was given a Windows 7 laptop. I jokingly said that it would be cool if I could get a machine with Linux on it as I would be much productive in that environment and, oh, can you at least grant me administrator access? Normally these things were never issues for me. When I joined my last startup we had an arsenal room where you can go and select your machine and accessories, and thats it. I ended up picking a pro and a very powerful desktop machine which had a tesla graphics card (so that I can experiment with CUDA sometimes). How I want my environment to be, or at least, if I want to install anything as adminstrator, I should have that flexibility. But here, both my requests were turned down and I was asked to work with what was given. Third, I have seen that Wall Street has the tendency to just buy out solutions rather than innovating stuff. Fourth, so many pointless meetings. It's like everyone's ass is on fire, but on closer inspection it's all meaningless stuff. I hear this too often "We need to get this done by the end of today" and then I will ask "Why?" and all I will get is a blank stare. I mean, no matter how senior you are you just can't come and tell me to drop everything and do your stuff. I think I have grown past that point. Fifth, I think Wall Street is good for managers, not for developers or technologists, and it troubles me to see that managers who have no clue are being handed projects. Some projects are so big that usually politics plays a bigger role, overlooking competency. Sixth, lack of personal growth. In my last job, one of the things which my CEO asked me to do was go out and speak at conferences, meetups and whereever I got a chance. He suggested that if I want to I should spend a few hours a week working on any open source project I wanted to. So, for my personal/professional development, it was bliss. I ended up becoming a very major contributor of a very popular project and gave talks etc. I haven't committed a single line of code since joining Wall Street. Before moving to Wall Street I was actually very excited to work there with an office right by the Hudson river. But my opinions have changed drastically. I am sure that some of the people working in Wall Street are pretty smart, but my guess is that, on average, Wall Street folks are no way as smart or productive as the Silicon Valley guys. It's kind of a shame that we have given such folks to the power to run the world economy.

I don't know because I turned down the offer but I can tell you that everyone that works there is on a desk and looks bored and miserable — even the divisions that are considered cool like Fixed Income. Also, working at Goldman in technology does not come with the same great brand name as it used to. They're desperate for tech hires (even interns) and working at Goldman doesn't look much better than working at a startup.The salary is also not competitive because the "branding" of Goldman is supposed to make up for the pay cut.

If you can get a job at a top tech firm like Google then there's no reason to work at a bank.  There's very little upside in terms of everything. Pay:   As of 2015, a fresh undergrad going to a bank as tech is going to get paid ~70k to 85k with a small cash bonus.  Google will pay 100k with at least 15% cash bonus and significant stock (~20k+ depending on position).  On top of that, the top tech firms provides free food, transportation, and haircuts etc(you get more perks if you're in silicon valley).  In the long run (15+ years), you'll get paid more at a bank but it all about works out as you'll get paid less until then.  Work:   It completely depends on the team and your manager.  In general, banks will give you more responsibility on the projects but you are severely limited to a set of approved tools and source codes.  The general attitude will be that if it works then it works so there's a good chance you'll end up maintaining other people's code(super boring).  Tech firms will give you less responsibility on a project but will be reviewing your code so there's a lot less code maintenance.  Some bank managers might do a code review but it will be rare.  The work itself for both is not going to be too difficult if you know what you're doing. Culture:   At a top tech firm, developers are going to have huge egos as they're pretty much the rain makers.  The bank programmers will be a lot more humble since there's less respect given for the back office.  At the same time, the bank programmers on average are not as good.  So, a lot of the fresh programmers at a bank are more BS'ers than amazing engineers(some tech groups are not like this, I'm just speaking in general).  If you have the slightest clue on what they're saying it becomes a lot harder to trust a programmer at a bank than one from a tech firm.  There will be very few people who are genuinely passionate about technology at a bank, most are just BS'ers putting up an image.  Ask any Java programmer at a bank about the new lambda programming and very few can talk about it in detail. Prestige:   If you're looking to get a Harvard MBA, Google software engineers are going to have an easier time with at least 2 years of work experience.   So it may be prestigious to someone from Idaho that you're a wall street programmer, it's really not prestigious to grad schools or city dwellers/employers who knows the difference between back and front office. Not everybody can get into Google or Facebook etc. but programming at a bank still gets you a pretty decent living.