I think people have a strange view of finance. Most people aren't paid obscene amounts of money in finance, just like most software developers don't make the salary of a senior developer at Big Tech. They also work an obscene amount of hours. During earnings season, I would be at my desk by 5am and work 80+ hours per week. Nowadays, It's a rarity to go more than 50. My brother currently works at Big Bank, and makes more than I do on an absolute basis, but I definitely make more than he does hourly. I get to work at 9:30-10, he gets to work at 7:30-8. I get home at 6:30-7:00, he gets home 8:30-9. He works at least a half day every Sunday, I enjoy my hobbies. I'm also commenting on HN at 11:00...
Most of my college friends still work in finance. I make more money than a few of them based on overly honest drunken conversations, and we're all more than 10 years into our careers. There is a glass ceiling in tech that is a lot more all-encompassing, but it's not like it doesn't exist in other industries. There are only so many higher-up positions, and most people burn out (or aren't capable of competing) before they even get in position for that promotion. The running joke when someone was getting poor performance reviews was "That's it, I'm moving to Vermont to open an antique store".
For some more comparison, I grew up in a 1%er town in the suburbs of NY. The average lawyer family lived in nicer houses than the average finance family, who in turn lived in nicer houses than the average medicine family. However, the most expensive house was owned by the CFO of Big Bank. Income is very right-skewed in finance.
Long Answer: Full retirement is hard, Healthcare is a pain in the US. You cant really "save" for it in the US, it can swallow all your savings, so you'll always need some job or another to cover healthcare and catastrophic needs. That said, you can very easily down-shift once you have a house, savings, etc.
Longer Answer: Could have, if I wanted to -- but you always give something up in exchange. These jobs will take everything you give them (time, health, life) and give back a decent percentage (income.) But you cannot easily dial up or down the work, it comes in chunks and you have to complete it. My life was increasingly unhinged at 27 and I decided to jump off the treadmill after seeing a colleague continue to work through his mother's terminal illness and death. Inertia and greed are a toxic combination. Numerous colleagues were on drugs, uppers, anti-depressants, etc. One died from stress (heart attack in his 30s.)
I chose to get married, have two kids. I switched to a pure tech job (now an ML product owner at a Series A pure tech firm.) We have dinner together almost every single day. Weekends are completely ours. We go to the park most warm days. We take 3 to 4 vacations a year, many with my mom as well. There is a decent amount of work but I can choose when to do it (unlike Wall St.) and the work is longer term and I can dial it up/down as family requires. I sit outside and read during lunch. I turn off the markets when i step out of work.
Many of my colleagues were easy millionaires by ~30 and multi-mullionaires if they stuck till their mid 30s and were focused. Many others blew through their bonuses (or snorted it away) and ended up with nothing and just live bonus to bonus. It also depends on the job (business/deal side vs quant side vs tech -- the money is a waterfall across the 3 sections.) As with all industries, you get ripped off if you dont fight for your share of the pie. Plenty of people avoid conflict and life comfortable lives and nothing more. I also saw several C++ programmer/manager earn double digit millions of dollars over several years, one earned over 100MM USD over the course of his time at the hedge fund (public records, check out AIG-FP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIG_bonus_payments_controversy)
I think I did well and hopefully dont have to worry about poverty anymore. You either get lucky (early FB employee, hot product at xyz.com) or you have to give up something. I havent seen someone truthfully say they got both money and family and happiness all together.
