Why banking engineers are unhappy: pay, the office, quants

It's no secret that bonuses for tech staff in banking have underwhelmed this year, but developers' woes don't end there. They're also upset about the return to the office, and about the better bonuses paid to quants.

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At JPMorgan, for example, multiple recruiters have said staff are complaining over "poor" bonuses. Insiders previously told us that JPMorgan's tech bonus pool was down 3%, but some people there seem to have had it worse than others; Christie Doderer, a London-based tech headhunter for RLS Search, told us some senior JPMorgan technologists have told her the received bonuses less than two-thirds of what they would usually receive. Other banks are behaving similarly. - "Nobody is getting special treatment" in tech, she says.

Doderer says the new low bonuses are a "way to get people out without having to make redundancies," Forcing people back to the office is having the same effect. She says "many have told us that [the previous hybrid arrangement] was what was keeping them there." Another headhunter, speaking anonymously, said "there’s not even enough room for everyone in the office" at some of these banks.

Getting rid of costly senior technologists is no easy feat, however. An APAC based algorithmic trading headhunter said "the senior talent left at banks is more 'brand loyal'" than younger staff who are "hungrier" and disinclined to stick around.

The better pay on offer to quants is also a source of discontentment.  A tech director at a top US bank told us that quants "get front office pay for writing code" and that "morale is really down at VP and below" in tech as a result.  The head of an executive search firm based in London said that "bonuses for the non-quant side have been fairly flat over the past few years." Bonuses haven't been great for all quants; one at Citi was told that keeping his job was his bonus.

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