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Comment by Mikeb85 | Hacker News Reader

Because banking makes a hell of a lot more money.

The intern was set to make £45,000 / pa (not including bonuses) as an Analyst, but I suppose it opens doors.

For an entry level position that's probably 1.5-2.5x what a software dev could expect to make in the UK. In my experience at least.

London is different in this manner - an entry level software developer position (at a consultancy, bank, hedge-fund, etc) can go from 35k-45k.

Outside of London (as I'm sure you're aware), this could be offered as a senior developer salary.

I'm in London, albeit not in a bank or hedge-fund. Perhaps I should be asking for a raise :)

In that industry bonuses will increase your salary by double or more... Junior analysts in a big bank/hedge fund can expect to make as much (or slightly more) than a senior programmer in Silicon Valley.

I work in that industry, and that's not quite the case any more. Bonuses for junior analysts can reach up to around 50% (which nearly every other profession could never expect), but they would never exceed base salary.

Anybody saying otherwise has been reading too many tabloids.

You can find out more details about salaries in this area by using a site like glassdoor.com. This 100%+ bonus culture is simply not true (now).

100+% bonuses still exist, but for VP and higher and in high-performing groups. Analysts aren't getting those post-2008.

Typically a VP in a high-performing group will outrank an ED or MD in a lower-ranking group (say, $150+300k vs. $300+100k).

According to people working in the industry in NYC that I talked to, a lot of the bonuses dried up after the financial crisis. Nowadays, the income for someone starting out (not an intern, but as a full time job after college) is only $80-90k.

That's not a bad salary for an intern position, especially if there are bonuses involved. In a lot of industries, internships are unpaid or very poorly paid. Software development pays rather well, but I certainly didn't make that kind of money on summer jobs.

This was not the salary for the internship - this is the salary of the position that this guy was about to be offered -- after his internship

It was probably the same salary for the internship minus bonus's - the IBD interns here are all on 45k + 1k signing, grad is normally about 5k signing and a bonus guaranteed by HR at at least a set level.

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