This is probably the first substantial article I've seen on the lead-up to the recession written by someone who's "one of us." It seems like much of his career activity took place a decade ago, but much of what he relates still rings true for computer scientists and software engineers on Wall Street today (excluding those that go straight into trading, banking, etc., of which there are a lot).<p>Until the recession hit, the odds of you making well over six figures in three or four years without even being that extraordinary were pretty high if you worked for one of the big five investment banks, and if you went to work for a hedge fund, you could be making much, much more than that without having to become a "business person."<p>It's more demanding psychologically (ironically, sometimes what I think is most poisonous to technologists' morale on Wall Street is the occasionally subservient and submissive attitude of some of their peers towards the traders and bankers) than working for a normal software company is, and your absolute maximum monetary return is still the highest with a startup, but in a way, it's an interesting middle ground between the stability of a regular software job and the potential payoff of a startup (just looking at the money here, personal fulfillment is a completely different discussion).<p>And although the whole "second-class citizen" thing does sting, it is interesting to see how much softer the criticism of the article's subject is on the New Yorker site compared to the vitriol usually hurled at an actual banker or trader; in fact, a few months ago, in the midst of the worst part of market volatility, one of the technology directors where I work was stopped for talking on a cell while driving; the cop asked him where he worked, and after telling him, our director implied that he was only let off without a ticket because he was in tech and not a banker.