the depiction of "wall street jobs" isn't very accurate...most people are not wearing many "hats", and quantitative modelers certainly aren't getting coffee for execs. outside of a small trading firm, you're likely to have a specific role as a programmer, quant, or trader. making 500k after a few years is very unlikely, and probably involves as much luck and being in the right place at the right time with the right people as startup options paying off.
things are definitely changing in the post-2008 world. Much of what I wrote is colored by my own experience at Goldman 1998-2008. I must say that even today, on the Goldman/Morgan trading desks, people do wear multiple hats and junior traders still get coffee. And the talented ones still ramp up to $1M+ pretty quickly.
