Today nice salaries come from the IT industry, which is growing in Zurich with big international corporations fighting to hire the best people. Letās say you are a machine learning expert with a PhD, you can easily earn more than 200k. And if you need a PhD, then ETH will pay you 60-80K, unheard in most other countries in the world.
1 Like
I debated with myself about this question for a year now and was drawn in both directions. In the end I came to the following conclusion (with the help of many friends):
- If you want to do a PhD because itās a fascinating field and you can endure the 4-5 years of blood and sweat, go for it. (This is partially true for me)
- If you see PhD as an opportunity to boost your career, or even just your salary, then itās not worth it. (This was a huge motivation for me)
- Likewise if you are blinded by the fanciness of a PhD title in front of your name, itās just not worth it. (I am an arrogant prick. So this one totally got meā¦)
Hereās my story:
- I am someone who has many interests but a hard time sticking to something for a prolonged period. One month Iāll work on some mobile app, another month I go crazy at my work as an engineer, next month Iāll mess around with machine learning, data science etcā¦ And thatās fine for me. I love exploring things.
- I am now 30 years old, completed master degree 1.5 years ago.
- I earn 90k - 100k, been promised a significant by beginning of 2019 (whatever they think is āsignificantā)
- Doing a PhD would bring me down to 60k-70k income.
- In my field and among the people I know, itās easily possible that the PhD takes 5 years to complete. Thatās a loss of ~150k at my current salary. Taking salary raises into account, the loss might even get close to 200k. Money that could well be invested meanwhile.
- I want kids some day, and I donāt want them in 6 years from now with an empty bank account, because I would only be able to set aside a few 100CHF per month during a PhD.
Funny enough, I was really drawn to doing a PhD before I discovered the whole FI community. The community got me so fired up, that I lost respect for the PhD and have now different plans. Actually, it is the first time in my life that finances interest me. So far I stashed the money on a bank account, knowing that itās losing value by the day.
Another aspect of ājust working at a companyā: I am free to do business on the side in whatever form that may be (Apps, games, web services, consulting). No PhD student that I know of can afford to do things on the side because of time pressure, deadlines and whatnot.
Bottom line: If you see the PhD only as a financial benefit, donāt do it. That being said, in some fields (Biology, Physics) itās a must. But these folks already know that and are probably in the middle of their PhD.
Sorry for the long post 
4 Likes
My experience is exactly the opposite: at the uni I was free to do whatever I wanted, now that I have a high paying job I also have a contract preventing me to do basically anything else which would bring me extra money.
That said, I agree with much of your analysis. I would like to just add a note in favor of a phd: depending on your field, your success in the research, and your entrepreneurial skills, doing a phd might give you the chance to then fund a tech spinoff, which might prove very rewarding in the future (but risk and required efforts are high).
2 Likes
I work in the automation industry and get the feeling that academic titles are extremely important. Most of the management has a phd title. Itās a nobilitation and in some cases opens doors (or ceilings).
1 Like
Fair point. But then Iād like to add something to your argument as well 
If you are doing a PhD and have a side project, that suddenly takes off or even results in a startup/product, your professor might claim ownership, if it has the slightest thing in common with your research at the lab. I saw that happen twice. Professor now talks about āhisā startups when in fact he had nothing to do with them.
Wait, when you say āuniā, do you mean as a Bachelor/Master student or as a PhD student? Two completely separate things I believe.
Thanks, good to hear 
1 Like
In some cases it also closes doors 
I believe in the end it comes down to how hard you are willing to work and how much effort you put into things you do. Some companies tend to hire PhDs, because they know these people are willing to work 24/7 if necessary. But if you can show similar resilience and knowledge, you should not have a huge disadvantage without a PhD. Unless you are looking for jobs in research of course.
Apologies for all the off-topic, but this topic has eaten me up for a long time and I have the urge to share all thoughts I collected meanwhile.
EDIT: Boy, a meetup with Swiss moustachians would surely bring opportunities for lots of discussions 
2 Likes
Hi, this an interesting and timely topic for me - Iām finishing my CS studies at ETH next year and need to decide what to do carrier-wise.
Best paying tech jobs are obviously in the US and Iād love to move there to work for FAANGSs but with chances of winning H1-B lottery like 30% I might be stuck here for some years. From what I hear biggest (>2k people) and best tech company here is Google Zurich and they pay Bay Area-level TC (!). But assuming I donāt get so lucky what are my other options here? Swiss companies i hear donāt pay anything close to top tier US tech companies.
Thereās a few small (I think) offices of other big american tech (which opens up a way to move to US via L1-B visa), Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Nvidia, Cisco - anyone knows what are kind of projects they working on and the pay? How about swiss finance industry, whatās the pay at hedge funds around here?
I was interviewing senior programmers for a position in our office, and all of them requested at least 120k - 150k annual salary, without a PhD. I donāt want to name the companies that they are coming from, but apparently there are plenty bigger companies that are currently paying them these amounts.
BUT, these people I met are all looking for another job mostly because their current positions are boring. They donāt care about the generic fintech product that their company is developing, or they are devops or something like that and feel unfulfilled.
If you are considering doing a PhD, I would recommend you get to know the research lab where you would do it, in case you are not already familiar with the team. I would never sign up for a PhD without knowing the professor and the team really well. It astonishes me how many people apply without having met the prof in person. I would start out as a research assistant for a few months while you are looking for the Silicon Valley jobs. If you canāt land a job you find interesting, and itās because you lack a PhD, why not do it?
When deciding to do a PhD because of the probably higher salary, I would be afraid of being disappointed after 5 years of hard labor in the event that the huge dream salary did not become reality. Iām just saying you should have at least one more reason besides $$$ to do a PhDā¦ in my opinion. But then again many people build their entire career on maximizing the salary ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
1 Like
I guess I canāt call my line of work very fulfiling, but I suck it up, because I only need to do it for a total of 10 years, not 40, if I keep the mustachian lifestyle. And once Iāve reached FIRE, then I can think about doing something interesting.
2 Likes
From my understanding 150k is below even junior developer comp at Google both here and in silicon valley - top tier tech pays very well
What do you think of the value of Msc degree? It is only 2 years waste of time but every quant finance job iāve seen wants at least an MSc but not so much in tech
I was checking some numbers. Iām quite impressed by the salary in banking:
IT:
Is it the reality?
As far as I know, people start off their career in banking in the 80-100k range [EDIT:after graduating university] and then many move to 100-130k after some years.
Moving beyond that is harder, but itās still quite possible if you are skilled and hard-working.
I have no idea about boni though.
Some numbers seem too high and some even too low, at least in Corporate & Retail banking. I donāt know anything about the others. Most of the people I know of are in the 65-90k range. Bonus between 5-35k depening on your KPIs. Branch managers usually 90-130k with a bonus between 10-50k.
Iām 29 years old (no bachelor degree) and work as a private client advisor. 83k base salary and 10-20k bonus (my last one in February this year was 18k).
2 Likes
But what kind of advisor are you? Investment, Pension, Mortgage? Are you just trying to sell some products to your customers? How many clients are you advising? How different is your job from a relationship manager?
Speaking of high salaries Iāve discovered with this tool that my dad made more money when I was born than me now.
Basic products, retirement, investments and mortgages. ~550 clients (probably ~350-400 families) with a total volume of ~130 million CHF.
For more details, PM.
6 Likes
But does it include bonuses ? because with a 10%-30% bonus the difference is high
This might be of interest for you guys. Latest data from Switzerland and gross salaries (includes everything like 13th salary, bonus etc.).
Looks very promising for me! I work in finance and I earned 96k in the last 12 months, so Iām probably in the lower 1/3. One out of 4 earns >150k in finance! Canāt wait to be in that region 
7 Likes
Source bitte? 
Thanks for sharing.
2 Likes
How do these statistics work? If youāre a DB admin for SBB, does your salary get counted as ātransportation and storageā? Is a restaurant owner classified together with all the waiters in āfood service activitiesā?
2 Likes