Here's a summary of the work environment:
- no office (hah!) or cubicle, just a space on a long desk, hardly conducive for concentrating on programming
- dress code is shirt and tie, but on Fridays you can drop the tie, and every quarter or so you can wear "jeans for charity" if you pay $10 (yes, I'm serious)
- C++ is the standard language, but it's C++ as written by physics PhD quants who have obviously never taken any classes in software engineering, and have no interest in doing so
- hours are long, 10 - 12 hours a day
- as much as possible technology is done by contractors or is outsourced
Generally speaking the attitude is nobody got fired for buying Oracle, so "awesome and seriously hard core projects" are few and far between if non-existent.
On the upside, the pay is good, so if you're disciplined and don't get stuck in the trap of living the Wall St. lifestyle you can save a lot and at some point take the money and run far, far away from the financial industry.