Startups are great experience. If you are lucky enough to be a technical co-founder then you get to pick the platform, design the system and generally call all the shots on the tech side. That alone can be quite rewarding. I'd say that was the most compelling reason for me personally.
There are a whole litany of standard answers to that question such as greater risk = great reward potential, the ability to choose and work on something you are truly interested in and/or passionate about.
I feel like the reasons are somewhat obvious as most HN'ers are aware of the pros/cons of this choice though I encourage others to chime in, I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch.
I've never worked for a start-up in a development role before, but I think I would like it. I am 28, fresh out of grad school and working for a bank currently. I like my coworkers and the work but when I walk by management and I overhear "We're not a development shop," I get disheartened because banks are becoming data centers and have to be in the software game.
Take a look at...
Dwolla: they are out to destroy the Automated Clearing House industry.
Bitcoin: banks need to know how to interface with that!
Micropayments: same deal.
Mobile: OCR for check deposits!
Data science/analytics ("big data"): obvious.
Banks that fail to adopt a hacker culture because IT is a "cost center" (despite the fact that all operational units of any business are) will crumble.
Not to discredit your question which is important in context... I feel like Both of them overlap and there are some really, really interesting problems in finance which most people don't have the balls to solve. There's a reason fintech startups are few and far between in comparison to the rest.
I was asking because I used to work in a bank, participated in two fintech startups, and have returned to banking due to circumstances with my family. I was going to target my advice based on the answer; however, after thinking this over some more, my advice would be the same for either answer. Stay in banking. There are a lot of problems in banking that need to be solved, and I think being on the inside of the bank gives one the best chance at solving those problems.
There are a whole litany of standard answers to that question such as greater risk = great reward potential, the ability to choose and work on something you are truly interested in and/or passionate about.
I feel like the reasons are somewhat obvious as most HN'ers are aware of the pros/cons of this choice though I encourage others to chime in, I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch.