Pros
prestige that comes with the name good on resume people 'think' you make tons of money you don't need to explain where you work once you just say the name
Cons
The prestige is really just a facade- If you work on their proprietary programming language - secdb/slang, get the hell out as soon as you can. you will be behind in mainstream technology, and you won't be marketable outside the company very soon. Once recruiter said there are some companies out there who simply won't interview any ex-goldman employees as they are just behind in technological skills, and there is a 'bad' reputation for ex-gs people you do NOT make tons of money here unless you are the exceptional 1%. most people would LOVE to make the avg gs salary - 350K or 400K as advertised in wall st, but it's extremely top heavy. Go to other hedgefunds who could easily pay much more. GS is very savvy when it comes to saving/making money, and they won't spend more money to keep you happy- but just enough so you don't leave. The culture is all about facade--- it's very superficial and no one trusts anyone. because of this 360 degree 'review' system they have, everyone pretends to be nice to everyone but when it comes to review, they can always backstab you because only a few people can get the high marks. When I left, there was a backlog of exit interviews up to 3 months - and another colleague of mine who left 1 month after me said he had to wait 6 months for his exit interview. In other words, there is a mass exodus happening in technology. If you are in technology, you are considered a 'cost center' and will NOT be treated the same way biz side folks are treated (traders, sales, strats). What I see in GS is all these cost center people, Tech, Ops, Infra, end up trying to suck up to the business folks, empowering them to act rudely as they have the ultimate say in everything. Expect an extremely political environment. Either you get into the fraternity or you are out. Since 2008, there hasn't really been a 'golden year' where everyone was happy with their compensation. GS would use 3 factors to determine your comp - your performance, company performance, market benchmark ---- and they would also find that one factor to tell you why your comp is not gonna be stellar this year. If you are a technologist fresh out of college, I would totally recommend you to go into startup space and that way you would learn so much more. If you are a lateral hire from a tech industry, don't come to GS. If you are lateral hire from another finance industry, GS may be better than other big banks.. but if your objective is to maximize your salary, I would recommend a hedgefund space instead.