NYC financial jobs are not 9-5 or without a lot of pressure.
For any job that you're likely to get in your 20s, NYC finance jobs pay worse, have far longer hours, and are much more high-pressure.
Beyond your 20s, it varies greatly by level of seniority, so it gets tougher to compare, but the high-paying jobs still require very long hours.
If you're working in the front office then your pay is going to be a multiple of a startup job. And it's going to be significantly higher then any established company in the area (Amazon, Facebook, Google). A good rule of thumb is your base will be similar what established companies pay and your bonus is all gravy.
Pressure and hours vary by firm. It's hard to generalize.
- Infrastructure is vital to most trades. Bonuses are going to more than 30% if you're on the cutting edge here - prop shops, some technology oriented hedge funds, and some banks.
- If by tools you mean GUIs then no.
- Engineers who write trading algos (or more likely algo components that are used by a trader at a higher level) will have a bonus that is more than 30%.