<p>^In the story above, there is NO significant difference in job itself working for investment bank IT or working for Google. Programming is programming and systems in investment banking might be significantly more complicated (hence more challenging job) than systems at Google. Nobody can tell without being very familiar with both. Nobody can tell the challenge level and job satisfaction level. You can only try and see for yourself. I worked for many un-related industries on several platforms using various languages and very different systems. Some that more appealing from outside prospective might not be as challenging as others that seems to be very mandane for outsiders. The insurance industry was definitely the most challenging and mentally demanding on my list. Would you tell based on the name?</p>