I've got into every company in FAANG plus top startups such as Snap, Roblox, TikTok, and Databricks for Senior roles. I've had onsites at Jump, JS, DESCO, CitSec, Two Sigma and have never passed even after trying 2x for some firms. Am I just not good enough or am I missing something culture/technical wise? Are the skill sets between big tech and quant finance that different? They don't give feedback so trying to identify what I should work on, or just give up. TC: 550K, 6 YOE
Your Alma Mater somehow decides if you are “qualified” for the top trading firms.
Did not go to a top school 🥲
No matter what OP. You are already very great! That's totally nepotism at such level. Maybe they are pissed off at your skills.
Did they have stat/math questions? Two sigma is pretty standard iirc
Nope no math
6yoe at google at ~600k TC? You are a rockstar and you are bigger than trading firms. Did you work in all those companies you listed in last 6 years?
I appreciate it! Yeah I'm not sure if it's my technical ability or if I'm missing something else. And nope those are just offers. I joined Google as L4 around 1.5 YOE for ~$300k and stock appreciation treated me really well. Recently moved to a different FAANG for the $550K
Did you join as L6 at Amazon?
I think trading firms are picky about what language you code in during the coding / design. Despite completing the problems well, I got bad feedback from a recent investment firms interview. I suspect they wanted the me to do it in go, java or C.
What do you use to solve ds and algo? Just curious. You are already great at Amazon.
If it's algo stuffs python. If it's design coding then I'll do typescript, maybe java if I prepped. But the last couple years it seems all my projects are typescript.
It comes down to this, really. Are you technically sufficient and am I happy to spend more time with you than my own family? The big difference between trading firms and tech companies is their size. You typically interview directly with the hiring team and they have to really like you on a personal level, because you might be 20% of their team.
Are you not telling us something about your technical performance on the interviews? Even if you make 550k with 6yoe and passed all those tech onsites it seems a little suspect that you did all those hft onsites well and didnt get a single offer. IMO, Its not harder its just a different skillset/person that they look for. you can't really get by with grinding leetcode + system design in hopes of getting an offer like with FAANG. You need deep knowledge in one area and you need to know it in and out. A lot of places also screen on culture as well, after all you are working at a smaller company so these things matter.
For trading companies it’s just not only about your coding skills. It’s not how tech hires, they see your are good at tech and then they match you with the team. So they hired you and teams pick you up. With trading and similar that team in need will be interviewing you and it’s just much more than just tech, it’s chemistry as well. So you are maybe a stellar tech professional but there is your and teams vibes do not align. You are happy with tech and TC is good, just stay within your environment.
Likely just a coincidence. But I could see a few scenarios where trading firms may turn down a highly skilled dev: 1. While technically not required for the job, if you say something that exposes some ignorance about financial markets, your interviewers may consciously or subconsciously think you're incompetent 2. If you do not demonstrate a material interest in "the game" of trading in your interview, or interest in financial markets generally 3. You do not have a PhD or a name brand bachelor's. Unfortunately, a lot of folks at trading firms are elitists who think only ivy league grads are capable of being intelligent. 4. Just not a great culture fit. Some firms may weight "wanting to grab a beer with you" far more heavily than tech companies.
What do you work on OP? That's good amount of TC for your YOE.
Congrats! That's great work. Really inspiring. Can you please give tips on what to focus on backend and what topics to focus to grow?