Take a peek at what Wolverine, Radix, or Jump are paying new grads though. It's generally like $500k+. Even Jane Street, which is a larger place that hires people who aren't published mathematicians (see: Sam Bankman-Fried) pays $750k
This is for traders and researchers though. You can get pretty similar early career salary + bonus as a SWE at JS or Citadel, which is probably what more people on HN would be considering. Do you know what kind of pay the smaller shops offer for pure SWE?
I’m sure it’s as good or better than big tech. But you don’t get to live in San Francisco and the work is a lot more boring.
You get to live in New York City which is unparalleled in the US in terms of urban amenities. The weather can be brutal though.
Or you live in Chicago which is like, still a solid city, but the weather is even worse.
I would disagree that trading firms are more boring than big tech. They are typically much smaller and leaner (even HRT and JS are like sub 2k?), and generally employees have massively more impact and ownership as opposed to being a cog in a 20k developer machine.