Most brutal junior corporate jobs (by hour and pay - ACTUAL DATA)

[Seth Walsh]

Rank​	Role	Representative firms	Hours/week​	Est. pay​	Effective pay​	Pay-adjusted verdict
1​	Restructuring / M&A analyst	Centerview, PJT, Moelis	85–100​	£110–150k​	£28/hr​	Extreme brutality; excellent exits
2​	Investment-banking analyst	Evercore, Goldman, JPMorgan	75–90​	£90–140k​	£28/hr​	Very brutal; respectable but not extraordinary hourly pay
3​	Megafund PE associate	Apollo, Blackstone, KKR	70–85​	£150–250k​	£52/hr​	Brutal but financially rational
4​	US BigLaw trainee	Kirkland, Weil, Latham	65–75​	£60–65k​	£18/hr​	One of the worst bargains
5​	US BigLaw NQ associate	Kirkland, Weil, Skadden	65–75​	£170–177k​	£49/hr​	Same brutality, radically better economics
6​	MBB graduate consultant	McKinsey, BCG, Bain	55–65​	£55–70k​	£21/hr​	Prestigious but badly paid for the workload
7​	Magic Circle NQ lawyer	Slaughter and May, Freshfields	52–62​	£125–150k​	£48–54/hr​	Strong pay-adjusted outcome
8​	Big Four audit graduate	PwC, Deloitte, EY, KPMG	50–58 average; 65–75 peak​	£32–40k​	£13/hr​	Worst overall bargain
9​	Big Four strategy/consulting analyst	Strategy&, EY-Parthenon, Monitor Deloitte	48–60​	£40–55k​	£18/hr​	MBB-type hours without MBB exits or pay
10​	Quant trader	Jane Street, Citadel Securities, XTX	45–55​	£150–240k​	£78/hr​	Best pay-adjusted junior career
11​	Amazon L4 software engineer	Amazon	45–55​	£78–83k​	£32/hr​	Reasonable pay; somewhat intense for tech
12​	Commercial-law NQ	Osborne Clarke	45–50​	£97k​	£41/hr​	Excellent law lifestyle/pay compromise
13​	Asset-management analyst	BlackRock, Fidelity, Vanguard	45–55​	£60–90k​	£30/hr​	Sustainable finance career
14​	Bank risk / model-risk analyst	JPMorgan, HSBC, Barclays	42–50​	£40–65k​	£23/hr​	Moderate hours; stable but unexceptional pay
15​	Meta/Google graduate SWE	Meta, Google	40–50​	£92–111k​	£45/hr​	Elite lifestyle-adjusted outcome
16​	Corporate-strategy analyst	FTSE 100 company	40–50​	£40–50k​	£20/hr​	Comfortable hours, mediocre economics
17​	Junior in-house counsel	Bank, tech or FTSE company	40–48​	£60–95k​	£35/hr​	Best sustainable legal route
18​	FP&A analyst	FTSE 100 / large multinational	40–48​	£55–70k​	£28/hr​	Strong ordinary corporate outcome
19​	Internal-audit analyst	Lloyds, Barclays, Deutsche Bank	40–45​	£44–64k​	£25/hr​	Low brutality, limited upside
20​	Microsoft graduate SWE	Microsoft	38–45​	£58–65k​	£30/hr​	Least brutal credible professional track

 

[Stalker]

Jobs jobs jobs...

#Theunemployedmatter

 

[Seth Walsh]

Jobs jobs jobs...

#Theunemployedmatter

 

[tenmacel]

Lot of these are entry level, sadly you have to pull slavish hours to rise up ranks nowadays, finance especially guys work 100+/wk in their 20s until they get everything together.

 

[Foreverbrad]

Are these actual hours or billed hours? Cause most SWE are bragging that they work 10 hours a week and play video games all day.

 

[Seth Walsh]

Are these actual hours or billed hours? Cause most SWE are bragging that they work 10 hours a week and play video games all day.

Just globally paid software engineers. Google, AWS, Stripe type companies.

Rest of the devs at all other firms are just slop and earn 60-70% less and yeah probs just work 10hrs a week and play vidya