Main image of article What Software Engineers, Analysts Earn at JPMorgan, Big Finance Firms

How much do entry-level engineers, analysts, and technologists make at some of the country’s most prominent financial firms and banks? More to the point, how does that compensation compare to what technologists pull down at some of the country’s largest tech firms?

For the answers, we turned (as we’ve turned so many times before) to levels.fyi, which crowdsources compensation data from a variety of firms. Anonymous crowdsourcing isn’t the most scientific means of determining compensation, but it still gives us a general idea of what technologists at individual companies are pulling down. For this exercise, we examined Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bloomberg, Capital One, and Visa.

Yes, there’s a bit of oranges-to-apples comparison here—Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan and Capital One are banks and financial institutions, while Bloomberg is primarily focused on monitoring the financial markets, and Visa deals with credit cards. Nonetheless, technologists at all these firms must specialize in financial concepts, which still makes the comparison a valuable one. Let’s check out the chart of entry-level (and relatively entry-level) technologists:

Compare that to entry-level software engineering salaries at some of the nation’s largest tech firms, including Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft:

What can we conclude from this? Entry-level engineers and tech-oriented analysts at firms such as Goldman Sachs and Capital One can expect handsome salaries, but their equity payouts tend to lag behind what you find at the nation’s largest tech companies. In a certain way, that makes sense: the tech industry is big on using stock as a means of compensation, sometimes to a degree that seems unfathomable in other industries.

As with many companies, those technologists at these financial firms might also receive a greater proportion of stock as they ascend through the ranks and take up more integral roles.

Heading in 2020, unemployment within the tech industry remains low, and it’s clear that many employers have a hunger for software engineers. However, just because they’re desperate for tech talent doesn’t mean that just anyone can walk into a job—within industries such as finance, companies are looking for developers and engineers with just the right mix of skills and experience. At financial firms, those skilled in machine learning, A.I. and other disciplines can expect to make far more than the baseline, even in relatively entry-level positions.