

Ask HN: Goldman Sachs vs. Microsoft/Google for a fresher - h43k3r

As a fresher who will be graduating out of college this summer, I have no idea which sector will be best for me.<p>I am very good at CS fundamentals and would love in the field.<p>Coming to the point, GS gives a very good salary as compared to Google&#x2F;Microsoft in India ( Almost twice)<p>I would like to hear the opinions of people who have worked in both financial sector and tech sector and can help me in choosing in between these.
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akg_67
Go with GS. In the end, you want to work for companies that will be accretive
to your future career growth in the industry. Also, you want to make sure not
only you have technical experience but also domain experience that will be
more valuable in the future.

GS had for long time and still has the cache within Financial sector. Having
GS on your resume will open doors at other financial companies for technology
opportunities and give you an edge in your career growth.

Google has the cache right now but will it be persistent in the future.
Considering Microsoft name on your resume no longer gives you any
edge/influence like it did in 1990s, I will assume Google influence will be
similar to Microsoft in another decade.

CS is a fast changing field so skill obsolescence is a major issue with the
field and a major challenge to long term stability/growth of your career. You
will have to stay up to date with newer technologies and continue to reinvent
yourself every 5-10 years just to stay relevant. For example, knowing
Microsoft stack is no longer as valuable as it was just a decade ago.

Working in an industry vertical such as financial, despite changes in CS
technology applied to finance, you are still relevant because of your domain
knowledge.

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brd
I'm sure it depends entirely on what area of the org you work in but in my
opinion GS is not a good place for most programmers. The bulk of their
programmers will be supporting applications (not writing sophisticated trading
software) and in that area career progression seemed to be shockingly slow
from what I could tell.

I interviewed at GS years ago and I ended up declining the job mid interview
when I realized it would likely be years before I worked back up into a role
where I'd have control over designing more complex systems. In short, GS
seemed particularly good at pumping out sub-par code monkeys.

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h43k3r
Thanks for the info.

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Mimu
Twice the salary is almost a no-brainer for anyone in any field to be honest.

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gaalze
Go with GS.

Microsoft/Google will have you drinking Kool-Aid and you'll be pushing their
shit.

If you go into GS you will learn a lot more about finance and that's
important, you can take that knowledge and move to a corporation that uses a
better language like Haskell or Ocaml, or find some open minded people who
will let you use a better language inside GS.

At Microsoft/Google you are stuck with .Net/C++ or something like Go which was
designed by an idiot who forgot about incremental compilation. Also they are
offering you less, so they can go fuck themselves.

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h43k3r
Thats pretty harsh for MS/Google :P .

