How much money can you make in physics?

[jtbell]

Physics is a path to a solid upper-middle class income and can definitely pay the bills.

Nevertheless, if someone grows up in a high-income family (parents are e.g. MDs , or work in "big law", investment banking or high-flying tech companies) it may be difficult psychologically for him (or his parents!) if he doesn't end up with an income that supports the lifestyle that he grew up in.

I'm not saying this is necessarily the OP's situation, of course. (Nor was it for me!)

 

[rkr]

I'm interested in this. I enjoy my career as a medical physicist, but towards the end of my physics BS I realized I had a personal interest in finance and investments. How did your career take you here? About how many hours do you spend a week at work and also working from home? I hear some finance careers can be brutal.

I got into it by coincidence, really. We spawned off a class at a university. Wouldn't have been possible without the financial support of alumni who propped us up.

The median work hours are about 10h per day. There's a lot more on-site work than remote work given the nature of IP protection. Besides, you usually get free food and better idea generation on-site. The bigger issue I see is that there's a high variance of work hours - if something breaks, there's very strong incentives to drop everything to get it fixed. You can't just leave it for later. Some of my colleagues have to work a full day on Christmas Eve.

The hours are probably best in the research group of a bank because the job is more stable and the competition is less tight. Then long-term hedge funds. High-speed and intraday trading firms like us are usually a lot more short-sighted in our payroll.