Why do so many top students end up at niche financial firms and under the radar startups?

Facebook epxa03
Dec 28, 2018 34 Comments

It feels like you don’t see all that many people from Stanford/MIT at FB/G anymore. Relative to their size of the companies you see many more going to more secretive and niche financial firms like HRT, Five Rings, Ansatz Capital, etc or other startups that I’ve either never heard of or are moderately big like Quora. Do they know something that most people don’t? Are these sort of firms much more lucrative or better career wise somehow? Why does this happen? It seems people like they could easily work in FAANG but choose not to

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 TOP 34 Comments
  • Google ovBk62
    There are quite a lot of students from Stanford, MIT, CMU etc at G at least. I dunno about F. IIRC some 100+ students join Google from CMU every year
    Dec 28, 2018 9
    • Airbnb
      jim.hodlen

      Airbnb

      BIO
      kindly doing the needful
       jim.hodlenmore
      cash cow or not if someone can survive a rigorous curriculum like what’s offered at cmu, stanford whatnot they’re usually pretty solid in my experience.
      Dec 28, 2018
    • Sephora seniorswe
      MIT EECS alum here, google is seen as same as FB and too big. There are definitely not droves joining google as you imply. Robinhood is viewed in higher regard due to smaller size and more interesting opportunities
      Dec 28, 2018
    • Google ovBk62
      The statistics I quoted are available on CMUs website. They aren't made up. A lot of those folks are BS CS and BS ECE, yes. Others are MS.

      Piazza does annual surveys about this. Standard students are more attracted to startups. CMU are more of Google types. MIT is in the middle
      Dec 28, 2018
    • Sephora seniorswe
      Here is the link:

      https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2017_one_pagers/scs/BS_SCS_One_Pager_2017_%20rev.1.18.pdf

      Google hires similar amounts to FB proportionally given FB is smaller than google.
      Dec 28, 2018
    • Google ovBk62
      Thanks Sephora! I was replying to Oath
      Dec 29, 2018
  • Cisco cuck
    Working in corporate America blows and the small startups spend more per employee on food and trips than Microsoft or Google. I don’t see Facebook flying engineering teams out to Cancun or Thailand
    Dec 28, 2018 9
    • Facebook / Eng msus33
      Yes, i’ve also flown to different continents this year.
      Dec 28, 2018
    • Microsoft ImAwesome
      Business class for traveling?
      Dec 28, 2018
    • Facebook / Eng msus33
      Business class for long haul flights. Depends on distance. (I flew business in both cases, 11h+ flights)
      Dec 28, 2018
    • Facebook AyyoLeMayo
      Yup business for flights longer than 4500 miles, comfort plus for all other cases if your manager is okay with it
      Dec 28, 2018
    • Oracle / Eng NUkX62
      Why do you fly so much?
      Dec 28, 2018
  • Facebook AyyoLeMayo
    In my friend circle, the people who do that either hate big companies, or want a lot of money. When people excel at school, they tend to have some sort of bubble that is formed thinking that they will succeed at anything they do. This results in them going for riskier jobs in terms of payoff and personal sacrifice, thinking it will still be a walk in the park like academia was.

    And on the FAANG front, I’ve done a lot of interviewing and people from elite schools are not nearly as good as you might think
    Dec 28, 2018 0

  • This comment was deleted by original commenter.

    • Facebook epxa03
      OP
      Is this true even if FB/G where they claim your development is such a high priority?
      Dec 28, 2018
    • Jet.com Drywall
      Yes
      Dec 28, 2018
  • Microsoft ScubyDuBDu
    I on a personal level feel the same. I would any day work at these stealth startups if not for Visa issues. As it has been mentioned previously, the biggest reason a lot of people work these fang companies is job security in case of visa problems for international people. In a hypothetical world where Visa wasn't a issue, why would you work in a big environment where you are just a cog and not at a place where you are valued so much, has much better scope to learn and grow, and hell even get that sweet sweet payout if your startup goes public!
    Dec 28, 2018 0
  • Microsoft / Eng dKWp30
    Outside of our nice little tech bubble, financial firms pay a shitload of money to senior IBankers and traders. Especially once you get promoted into the VP level and beyond. Comp is in the million dollar range and higher for directors/managing directors at top banks and hedge funds. My sister works in this industry and one of her bosses once owned a vineyard in Europe. On the flipside, it’s a highly competitive industry (must earn money for the firm, it’s quantifiable and there are targets) and she thinks half of her incoming class at her first bank are gone.
    Dec 28, 2018 1
    • Facebook AyyoLeMayo
      One thing to note is that most people in computer science don’t even work on the banking/trading side, they usually just work on the tech side with much less pay
      Dec 28, 2018
  • Two Sigma quant101
    HRT pays their new grads 300-400k so it makes sense
    Dec 28, 2018 2
    • Facebook epxa03
      OP
      Absurd, do you know what they pay they senior engineers then or If other small yet elite firms are as lucrative?
      Dec 28, 2018
    • Facebook AyyoLeMayo
      Ive gotten offers from prop shops for up to 1M TC, I’d guess thats around the limit
      Dec 28, 2018
  • Quora eNHU01
    Quora, Asana, Addepar MemSql, and a couple of others have strong competitive programming communities so they recruit a lot of competitive programmers straight out of school because of network effect (friends of friends).

    The HFT prop shops and quantitative hedge funds all recruit heavily out of Ivies, Chicago, MIT , and a bit from Stanford/Berkeley. Some of them also have many math and programming competition people, so network effect also kicks in.

    Some young but big startups like Robinhood, Flexport, Doordash have strong connections to Stanford and Berkeley and recruit heavily on campus.

    Young American citizens from top schools and well off families, in many cases Silicon Valley based families, don't care much about TC, wlb, Visa sponsorship, ladder climbing, stability, etc they care more about having fun with like minded friends and tackling hard problems with small teams.
    Apr 4 0
  • Google stowillio
    Didn't F have a hiring freeze for non-senior SWEs late this year? Soinds like you are just seeing the effects of that policy.
    Dec 28, 2018 1
    • Facebook epxa03
      OP
      Yes I believe this happened but I think it’s been a general trend and not isolated to this year
      Dec 28, 2018
  • New TKpg12
    This is nothing new, roughly starting back at the beginning of time - people are different and choose different career paths. "Any more brain busters?"
    Dec 28, 2018 0
  • Google masteratbs
    Very simple - they pay a lot more and are more pretigious.
    Apr 4 0