
Goldman Sachs relaxes dress code for techs in fight for talent - deegles
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-goldman-sachs-technology-idUSKBN19Y17J
======
JumpCrisscross
I worked on the American trading floor of a Swiss bank. After the crisis,
Zürich decided to reign in us free-wheelers. So they came out with a new dress
code [1]:

"Among the 'dos' and 'don’ts' for women: 'Make sure to touch up hair regrowth
regularly if you color your hair.' Men are commanded to, 'Schedule barber
appointments every four weeks to maintain your haircut shape.'

Neither sex is allowed to 'allow their underwear to appear,' wear short-
sleeved shirts or, strangely, cuff links."

We all bought ridiculously-coloured suits (the bankers, being bankers, went
along); the rules were pared back. Goldman Sachs has always had an antiquated
dress code for people who will never come within fifty feet of a client.

[1]
[http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/797245](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/797245)

~~~
gaius
_Goldman Sachs has always had a ridiculously antiquated dress code for people
who will never come within fifty feet of a client._

When I was much younger I didn't understand the concept of people who never
had to deal with clients having a dress code but now I sorta do: the company
is trying to create or promote the concept that everyone in the company is a
member of the same team and have more in common with each other than they do
with outsiders. Whether or not this actually works I don't know, but that's
the only thing that makes sense. Same reason I guess the military puts
_everyone_ in camo these days, even people well behind the front lines.

~~~
ashark
If Cialdini's _Influence_ is to be believed, everyone _says_ they don't treat
people wearing (or driving) nice stuff better, but subjecting this to
scientific scrutiny reveals that they overwhelmingly and significantly _do_.

If that's true then dressing well is pretty damn rational in general, and
especially if money's on the line.

~~~
qq66
As an Indian immigrant to Minnesota in the 1970s, my dad adopted a habit of
ALWAYS wearing a suit. This gave him the benefit of the doubt in a lot of
interactions where he wouldn't have otherwise had it. He kept up that habit
for a long time and wore a suit to parent teacher conferences, my 4th grade
violin "concert," etc. It most certainly got him a deference from others and
did its job admirably.

He never got OK with my habit of wearing jeans and T-shirts even as an adult
because he couldn't grasp how different my experience was from his.

~~~
gambiting
That's something I got from my dad as well - dress for the job you want,not
the one you have. I also found that dressing well fixes at least some of the
age discrimination you face as a young person, you get treated much better
while wearing a suit and a tie than when just wearing a t-shirt or a plain
shirt.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
So if you want a job at google but work at a bank, wear Hawaiian shirts and
shorts?

Also, over dressing can be as much of a problem as underdressing. If you came
to a def interview at say Facebook in a suit, it could get awkward.

~~~
gambiting
Well, obviously that was an advice given by a working man trying to punch
above his weight and be treated seriously in situations where most people from
his background weren't. It worked for him, and it worked for me when I was
looking for jobs, houses, had to do official business and run a company. I
suppose a situation like you described has never crossed my dad's mind because
it's just such a unique problem to have. As with any advice - use common
sense?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Ideologies defy common sense; if someone believes a suit is always
appropriate, they might not accept that there are contexts where it isn't.
Likewise the other way around.

------
backtoyoujim
I remember working in a bullpen among other young, enthusiastic, hard-working,
poorly groomed males coding in the horror show that C++, CORBA, and Oracle
could put on for a production environment during that first 90s dot.com build
up.

Meanwhile the president/CEO guy came wandering through the production gallows
with our manager speaking about how next-round VCs were going to show up
tomorrow for a looksee.

I asked my manager if we should dress up for that. The CEO threw his hands out
and said, "No, no, no! Wear that penguin shirt and flip flops and shit. We are
a start-up."

------
marcoperaza
If you view human beings as perfectly rational machines then dress codes make
no sense, but that's not what we are. Dressing formally puts you in a
different frame of mind. It reminds you that your work is serious and that
different standards apply to how you act and talk than in your casual personal
life. If you dress to work the way you'd show up to a dive bar, then you're
that much closer to behaving like you do at a dive bar.

Economist Tyler Cowen makes another good argument for formal dress: it is a
vehicle for social mobility.[1] In a society that values formal dress, you can
signal your intent to move up the social hierarchy by how you dress yourself.
If you want to become an elite, then dress like one and people will take you
seriously. But when the elites adopt casual dress in their professional lives,
what is left are much more subtle and hard-to-adopt class signifiers: manners
of speaking, interests, childhood experiences, travel, etc.

Yet another problem is that dressing "smart casual" is actually more difficult
and expensive than wearing a suit. A suit is a great equalizer. A $2000 suit
is not all that different than a $300 suit. And you can very easily get away
with having only two or three suits. But smart casual is much more difficult,
subtle, and expensive to pull off.[2]

[1][http://www.businessinsider.com/wearing-casual-clothes-at-
wor...](http://www.businessinsider.com/wearing-casual-clothes-at-work-to-show-
wealth-2017-2)

[2][http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/05/inf...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/05/informal-
dress-social-mobility-sicilian-perspective.html)

~~~
gaius
_But when the elites adopt casual dress in their professional lives, what is
left are much more subtle and hard-to-adopt class signifiers: manners of
speaking, interests, childhood experiences, travel, etc_

The NYT had an article on this recently:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/opinion/how-we-are-
ruinin...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/opinion/how-we-are-ruining-
america.html?_r=0)

 _I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I
led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she
was confronted with sandwiches named “Padrino” and “Pomodoro” and ingredients
like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she
wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican.

American upper-middle-class culture (where the opportunities are) is now laced
with cultural signifiers that are completely illegible unless you happen to
have grown up in this class._

~~~
xxpor
That op-ed was mocked mercilessly.

~~~
marcoperaza
That's sometimes a sign that you're onto something. Donald Trump was mocked
mercilessly. Looks like he got the last laugh.

The sandwich shop example is a little weak, but I agree with Brook's point.
There is a cultural segmenting of American society into the top 20% and the
rest, and it's a strong barrier to social mobility. At the college I attended,
there was a clear social barrier between the kids from upper middle class
urban families, and those from lower middle class suburbia. The differences in
interests and life experiences were profound and hard to overcome. Ironically,
the much derided fraternity system was one of the few effective measures for
bridging that gap, by creating common experiences and a new shared identity.

~~~
jldugger
>Donald Trump was mocked mercilessly. Looks like he got the last laugh.

_Is_ mocked mercilessly, and I don't think he's got the last of anything yet.

~~~
digga3000
... he's president of the united states?

~~~
jldugger
And half his family / cabinet is implicated in relaxing sanctions against the
Russian kleptocracy in exchange for information damaging to his political
rivals.

------
jventura
I know some people prefer money over morality and integrity, but personally, I
am satisfied that these guys have to struggle to get people to work for them.
In my ideal world, people would grow spines and would not work for these shady
big companies.

~~~
closeparen
Goldman and its ilk may be responsible for the financial crisis, but the
financial crisis was painful for ordinary people because Wall Street _stopped_
performing its function in the economy. Business ground to a halt and
companies laid off workers in large part because credit dried up.

If these big shady companies are immoral because of that time their operations
slowed, imagine what would happen if you got your wish.

~~~
chrisbennet
Google "Goldman Sacks starvation" sometime.

------
kchoudhu
GS relaxing its tech dress code is the first sign of the of the end of the
business cycle. The second is a management committee member taking up DJing.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/business/dealbook/goldman...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/business/dealbook/goldman-
sachs-david-solomon-dj-d-sol.html?smid=tw-dealbook&smtyp=cur)

Sell equities, buy treasuries.

~~~
walshemj
no QE has caused a massive bull market in Bonds Guilts Etc buying gold or
commodities as a hedge might be better

~~~
kchoudhu
Honestly, you're probably better off buying BTC.

------
Cieplak
Serge Aleynikov, you're awesome and everyone here loves you. Thanks for all
your hard work and open source contributions.

[https://github.com/saleyn](https://github.com/saleyn)

~~~
avh02
man, provide some context so poor people like me don't flag your comment then
feel stupid and unflag them.

context: see other comment
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14777935](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14777935)

------
jimmcslim
Goldman Sachs might get more traction with tech talent if they drop their
proprietary in-house language and database; Slang and SecDB. See 'Confessions
of a Slang coder at Goldman Sachs' [1], and 'The hidden weakness inside
Goldman Sachs?' [2]. Of course, it is considered by some to be the secure
sauce behind their secret source but I expect its a factor, especially if they
are trying to hire from the Silicon Valley crowd.

[1] [http://news.efinancialcareers.com/au-en/282097/slang-
goldman...](http://news.efinancialcareers.com/au-en/282097/slang-goldman-
sachs/)

[2] [http://news.efinancialcareers.com/au-en/274853/secdb-
goldman...](http://news.efinancialcareers.com/au-en/274853/secdb-goldman-
sachs-slang/)

------
MrMorden
If you want my attention, the thing to offer is an actual office with an
actual door that closes. (Private, semiprivate, whatever—just not a thousand
of my closest friends and a jet engine or two.)

------
duncans
Odd, I worked at Goldman Sachs in London in approx. 1999-2001 and visited the
New York office a few times and remember it being the usual "smart/casual"
(veering to very casual). When did it smarten up?

~~~
nopzor
I visited their NYC offices in 2008. we were talking to them about some
openstack/cloud stuff at the time. I went in jeans and a polo. My contact
there emailed after saying the meeting went well, but to please wear a dress
shirt and no jeans next time. And I wasn't even an employee! ;)

~~~
dc2447
Definitely ahead of their time, Openstack wasn't formed until 2010

------
Nursie
Having spent some time at one of the other big financial sector names recently
(bigger than goldman)...

Yeah dress codes for tech folk went out some time ago. Among the coders I
spent time with, jeans and metal t-shirts were de-rigeur

------
blahfuk
Just pay more than your competitors! I'll dress in a fucking clown suit if you
pay me the right price.

------
viach
Allowing work remotely would work better, imo.

~~~
kchoudhu
They allow it. Just make sure your MD is behind you.

------
jjuhl
I never got the point of dress codes. When everyone dress (boringly) alike I
tend to view them as mindless drones and my respect for them drops to near
zero. Show up in some unusual or creative outfit however and I'm so much more
willing to believe you are an intelligent and interresting human being.

~~~
cpsempek
Totally agree. I mean, look at all these dull, uncreative, mindless drones
[http://www.uh.edu/engines/Solvay-1927.jpg](http://www.uh.edu/engines/Solvay-1927.jpg).

~~~
lucb1e
I feel like a black and white picture doesn't really contribute to the
conversation. I assume it's meant as a joke but either way, I try to downvote
when something doesn't contribute (as opposed to when I don't agree).

~~~
hobo_mark
Hello? It's not just a black and white picture, it's the 1927 Solvay
Conference on Quantum Mechanics, the joke being that most of the "mindless
drones in suits" in it won Nobel prizes.

~~~
lucb1e
I figured they must be prominent people, but in that picture I don't see much.
It won't be pink and purple but I can imagine tints of green and other colors
that shake things up a bit.

------
jvehent
Slowly getting there, but they still have to wear pants...

------
rajeshp1986
I have different opinion on this one. I will be very happy to wear suit if you
pay me executive level salary and I don't mind even if I work as an individual
contributor and write code. But if you tell me that it is an organizational
policy and you have to be dressed smart because you might bump the CEO of the
company or any future client in the elevator but we will still pay you a
salary of 60-100k and sit a cube all day head down and keep working your ass
then sorry to say that "Goldman sacs, go f __yourself "

------
mabbo
I once saw a press release about Goldman or one of these other big money firms
and how they were going to build software "like a startup". In the photo that
accompanied it were a group of guys wearing hoodies that had some lame slogan
on it, trying to woo Silicon Valley talent to come to finance by showing how
they were cool now.

Under the hoodies were expensive shirts and ties.

The picture had exactly the opposite effect of what it intended- it showed how
fake and false the 'culture' they were portraying was.

~~~
throwu383
This was Goldman, particularly Marty Chavez who is otherwise a very smart
character originating from from outside banking (Stanford Phd).

------
praulv
Are salaries in IB tech on that level today? I doubt even a senior quant hedge
fund / HFT firm developer makes anywhere near the quoted $400k.

~~~
arcanus
I think 400 is likely attainable for the hedge funds, no idea about other
fields. The HFT guys pay about 250 (total comp, e.g, salary and bonuses) for a
newly minted PhD.

~~~
praulv
No way. £250K for a new Ph.D. with zero experience in industry? Even a low
latency whiz kid with deep Linux kernel optimisation will just about maybe
make £250K in a very good year.

~~~
arcanus
$250k, not pounds. $125k base, 100% bonus. I know two fellow Phds who had this
first year. This is a top-10 program, but not more.

~~~
praulv
Agreed, that sounds about right.

------
ShabbosGoy
I'm still traumatized from working in banking tech. When I see a line of Java
code I start to break out into cold sweats.

~~~
gvd
What do you work on now?

------
ib_tech_gone
So, if you want us "techs" to work on antiquated languages like Slang, then
cut us some slack in our slacks.

Tech is IB land is billions of dollars, yet, the actual end delivery, the
systems, the codebases, the platforms are of a far lower quality than most
outside could ever suspect.

Bonus-driven development is partially to blame there though.

------
fgandiya
Oh cool... If only this happened six months ago when I had my interview. Then
again, attire was the smallest problem of the interview.

I remember reading Glassdoor to see what working for the company as a dev was
like and most of them complained about how low the pay was compared to tech.

Maybe they should pay more for a wider talent pool?

------
5706906c06c
BlackRock did the same.

------
mmphosis
[http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/569010e4dd08956a188...](http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/569010e4dd08956a188b463f-596-447/mr-
robot-tk-body-image-1441135756.png)

------
jedmeyers
The important question, however, is do suits make a corporate comeback?

------
doener
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14768697](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14768697)

------
Max_Horstmann
"Oh and remember, next Friday is Hawaiian shirt day! So, y'know, if you want
to, go ahead and uh, wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans."

------
corporateslave2
compensation for engineers is still lower at Goldman than at tech firms, nice
try Goldman.

~~~
tenpies
Maybe a minority view but, pay me a suit salary because I actually want to
wear a suit. I'm a professional, not your friend's tech-savvy kid.

~~~
drcross
I think this is a minority view, I used to have to wear suits for work and its
a pain making considerations for them.

~~~
sbov
I've only ever done tshirt and jeans stuff. I couldn't imagine wearing a suit
every day, but it might be fun to have a "dress up Fridays".

Ideally, anyone could wear whatever they want whenever they want. In practice,
it doesn't seem to work out this way, even at the tshirts and jeans companies.

~~~
somethingwitty1
Bunch of the teams I've worked with over the years have had "formal fridays".
I can confirm it was a fun tradition.

~~~
brad0
I thought I was the only one!

What kind of company did you work for where this happened?

------
accountyaccount
I sometimes wonder if I dressed better if I would be further along in my
career, but honestly I think it's just made it really easy for me to identify
people who understand and value my work.

There's this one guy high up in my company who I'm almost entirely convinced
got his job because he wears nice suits and has an English accent. We have
junior employees who know more about his area of speciality than he does.

------
derekp7
They could also try a policy of not arresting developers who contribute fixes
back to GPL projects too.

~~~
saganus
How so?

Do you have any links for this? it sounds pretty bad, but I guess there are
certain nuances to it?

~~~
naturalgradient
The GP is likely referring to this story:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov)

[http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/09/michael-lewis-
goldman...](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman-
sachs-programmer)

I am just now realising that this case is still ongoing. That's crazy. A DA
literally made it his mission to get the verdict reinstated:

'On April 4th, 2016, almost nine months after Aleynikov was acquitted by the
NY Supreme Court, the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance's office filed
an appeal seeking to reinstate the guilty verdict'

Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I would not be surprised if
Goldman kept applying pressure behind the scenes to ruin him.

Donation link to help fund appeal (his website):
[http://www.aleynikov.org](http://www.aleynikov.org)

~~~
gruez
>'On April 4th, 2016, almost nine months after Aleynikov was acquitted by the
NY Supreme Court, the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance's office filed
an appeal seeking to reinstate the guilty verdict'

how's this not double jeopardy?

~~~
naturalgradient
Because it's still the same case going through the motions.

What I find more interesting is the following on the Manhattan DA's wikipedia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Vance_Jr.#2009_Manhattan...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Vance_Jr.#2009_Manhattan_District_Attorney_election)

'After Vance very publicly staged an accusation and spending 5 years and
reportedly $10 million on prosecuting the Abacus Federal Savings Bank for
larceny, the bank and its employees were found not guilty on all 80 charges.
Despite its small size, the Chinese-American family-run bank was the only New
York bank so charged during the Great Recession, despite Vance admitting that
Citibank, among others, had behaved badly. The story is well told in Steve
James' feature-length documentary, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, that
premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 11, 2016.'

n=2 is not much but there is at least initial indication of a pattern where
this DA is very specifically seeking cases where he is in a much better
position (more manpower, resources) than the prosecuted party to win. Going
after the little guy. Nice.

------
Frogolocalypse
I like wearing a suit because i like looking good.

~~~
stephengillie
I like wearing a dress shirt and wool pants because I like looking good. I'm
not allowed to wear a tie (heavens forbid a coat) because I'll scare the other
engineers and developers. At my last job, I wore a dress shirt (with a collar)
and jeans one day, and my coworkers made me go home and change into a t-shirt
and jeans. Seattle/Redmond area btw, it's incredibly relaxed here.

~~~
Frogolocalypse
Dude. The answer to that request is to laugh and say "if you think I'm going
to rely on my personality to get laid, you're kidding yourself.". And then,
just always dress well.

There's never anything wrong with looking the best you can. There are far
worse things to be known for.

~~~
stephengillie
It wasn't a request. It was teammates constantly asking where I was
interviewing across the day. One team member made that same "joke" four times
in a row, in the span of a few minutes.

~~~
Frogolocalypse
That seriously sucks.

------
dboreham
"Must be an East Coast thing"

I can't recall being in any work situation since the 80's where dressing up
was even a good idea. I mean, wearing suit, tie etc would identify you as
being non-technical and hence not worth listening to.

Fascinating to hear that there are still workplaces with dress rules in 2017.

~~~
sidlls
I don't think you understand who is thought to be "not worth listening to."
This industry is filled with the software development equivalent of CAD
technicians thinking they're engaged in deeply analytical work and are
generally well respected simply because they can regurgitate some trite CS
trivia.

The reality is that the effects of the industry's arrogance have simply
shifted form over the years. You think being able to dress in shorts and
thongs at work is a measure of being respected ("recognition that the quality
of our work isn't measured by how we dress") but that's simply not true.

There are very few successful companies where more than a very small handful
of technical people are listened to or respected.

