I hear, anecdotally(n<10) that things are very bad at analyst/associate levels at BB banks right now. They send surveys around about how much people are working(what they are actually writing down and reporting, though hours aren't actually billed anymore) and people are averaging 90-95 with >100 spike bad weeks.<p>What I hear is that revenue is at record levels, deal flow is so high they can't keep things staffed and are pulling in junior bankers from lower tier shops. Bonuses were reportedly bad(in spite of record revenue) because of the 'optics of bankers getting big bonuses during covid' which sort of breaks the bargain of working 90-100 hours a week.<p>I'm shocked at the attrition I've heard of. For being such a high barrier to entry club(MBA, lots of 'networking', a hazing summer analyst/associateism, etc) people are bailing in crazy numbers. I am aware of a group(an incredibly high performing group, tons of deals, tons of S-1s that hit HN this year) where 80% of 2nd year associates have already left(since the cohort started).<p>Everyone knows that "bankers work a lot" but even among a friend group of MBB consultants, medical residents, buy side folks, etc -- the bankers have it the worst, and the comp is not really better unless you stick it out a long time.
A link to the 11-slide deck: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/v0ckTUm" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/v0ckTUm</a><p>Some very serious survey results in there. It's apparently a very small sample size (13 first years), but life sounds like absolute hell for those 13.
Not that I would ever want to do it, but I alway wonder how the outcomes would be if engineering teams worked as hard as IB/HF folks. I've produced some of my best code on the weeks where I manage to code 70+ hours, but its very unsustainable.<p>The obvious answer is that it wouldn't work, but some of these organizations with long hours are some of the best performing organizations, so there is definitely more to the story.
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26504909" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26504909</a><p>Here’s the original post/actual deck.