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I am a software developer (I know, so unique around here!) at the beginning of my career. I expect to get an offer from a trading company next week which will easily double my salary, possibly more depending on the market. The tech stack is amazing and exactly what I wanted to work with. The office and benefits look great. People seemed fun when I met the team and I was even assured that overtime is rare. I will get training in finance subjects so this is a perfect gateway into the industry. All in all, if one is to treat a job as simply a source of income, I cannot do much better than this. Especially with the current crappy labour market.
But I can't shake away the feeling that something is wrong here. The company is a market-maker in one of those areas of finance almost entirely uncoupled from the real economy and became pure speculation, so it makes all this money via basically imposing a tax on gullible layman day traders. There is absolutely nothing of value being produced. I am worried that when I get a bit older, I will regret that I wasted my potential on something so useless and zero-sum. Especially since until this point I have always worked on projects with a real "product". Often code that goes into things you could hold in your hand etc. It gives me enormous satisfaction, but pay is meh and life just seems to be getting more expensive. I know there is some value in providing liquidity to the markets, but I cannot fool myself enough to ignore that this whole operation is just a bunch of very smart people using their learning and wits to leech off the broader society. I had an informal lunch interview round and it felt a tiny bit embarrassing to be served lunch by someone who is at least doing something useful and in turn has to serve these people who aren't.
I know some people here work in finance. Would appreciate your perspective or anyone else with an opinion
If you believe Caplan, and I do, teachers are useless. If you believe Hanson, and I do, doctors are useless. Psychologists, advertisers, lawyers, useless useless useless, mostly zero-sum. Even the manufacture of widgets, how many do people need really.
As you note, bankers (the few honest ones) do provide some liquidity and price signals, and the market deems those important. It’s hard to justify the massive premium they get for that, but I think it's fair to say that historically those who tried to ‘curb banker’s speculation, usury etc’ have ended up harming the economy more than a naive anti-banker view would suggest. (And by that I don’t mean we should bailout failed banks. Let darwinism sort them out)
Day traders are players, it's not like you'd be "stealing" from an uninvolved party. So if I wasn't seeing clear harm, I would take the money, but I find all jobs almost equally unsatisfying, so you may come to a different conclusion.
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