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<p>Definitely not an easy industry, but people could do better elsewhere…</p>
<p>I ended up going into the defense industry as a software engineer. It wasn’t particularly hard to find a job because of the demand in the sector. I graduated with a 2.7 GPA from a public university with a BS Computer Science and I was able to get an offer from a major defense contractor within 30 days without even an in-person interview and no hooks/connections. (Heck I didn’t even start applying until the day I graduated!)</p>
<p>They were paying $80k/year, over 6 weeks of vacation, flex schedule (40 hour work week), unlimited tuition assistance for graduate school, etc. for an entry level software engineer. This was Maryland (National Capital Region) so the cost of living was substantially lower than places like NYC. I would have needed to get an guaranteed offer of at least $160k/year in a place like NYC for it to be even worth it for a comparable standard of living. Also, if extra work was requested by the client, they were willing to pay 2x the rate. Bonuses at the end of the year are laughable in my opinion, I’d rather get paid at the end of the 2 week pay period for work performed than wait until the end of the year to find out if I’m going to be rewarded for busting my @ss.</p>
<p>I’m very wary of giving any employer over a 40-50 hour work week because that lives you little free time to do anything else. It’s like putting all your eggs in one basket and letting someone else decide how your career progresses. I’d rather have the free time to determine how I build/develop my own “hedges”. Because I was rarely working over 50 hours a week, I was able to complete graduate school part time (MS Computer Science) and balance a part-time Army career on top of full time employment. By the time I finished grad school, it was equivalent to 2 years of work experience so you can guarantee a faster rate of progression versus your peers. The Army career nets anywhere from $10-40k/year in additional income as well as stacking a federal retirement benefits on top of regular income and 401k.</p>
<p>If you figure the most pitched path to a career in investment banking is…</p>
<ol>
<li> Bust your butt in high school to get to a name-brand prestigious college which isn’t necessarily inexpensive…</li>
<li> Go through the entire recruitment/selection process of investment banking…</li>
<li> Live in an expensive place like NYC where even those with 6 figure salaries are relatively poor because of the cost of living…</li>
<li> Work in an industry that is very much “up and out” within 3 years…very pyramid like</li>
<li> Possibly need to attend a full-time MBA for career progression and deal with the opportunity cost of not working for 2 years…not to mention debt…</li>
</ol>
<p>… it seems like extremely excessive work/effort for the reward…</p>