You can't answer this without specifying <i>which</i> technologist at Goldman Sachs or Google. What's their skillset? How specialized are they? Who do they know within the company? Which projects have they worked on? How much value did they deliver to the company?<p>Gut feel (as an ex-Googler with a number of friends on Wall Street) is probably that <i>on average</i> a decent technologist at Goldman Sachs will make more than their equivalent at Google, but the top end of Google's range is significantly higher than the top end for technologists at Goldman (though less than the top traders or portfolio managers). One thing most middle-class people underestimate is just how skewed the income distribution is; someone who can demonstrably make it rain for a big company typically gets paid well into the millions per year.