Wait, could you explain to us outsiders "the way the City works?" Are bonuses that important?

In the City, you get hired based on a "total comp" package that includes salary and a practically guaranteed bonus, that can be as much as your base salary or even more.

Well that changes everything, maybe we should reboot this entire thread.

That is a minority of programmers, even for London.

"Practically guaranteed" nowadays means about 70% probability in finance :). There are almost no hard guarantees anymore.

"The City" is a small area of London, in terms of business, the US equivalent of a financial district.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London

It's the UK term for Wall Street. It doesn't have as much of the geographic connotation these days - working in Canary Wharf or a Mayfair hedge fund can all come under the phrase of 'working the in the city'

The city is certainly a geographic area. It's the City of London, an entirely separate city with it's own government and everything.

"The City" is usually taken to mean the world of London finance, and in finance, bonuses are generally huge.

Some places have very big bonus' with average salary. I have a few friends on 35-45% bonus on £35k a year as swdevs.

Unless the devs in question are building trading algos or other front-line work the bonus isn't often much more than other industries. The idea you're going to get a 100%+ base salary bonus when you work building order resolutions for a T2 investment bank in the City is laughable.

Not every business in London is a bank?