Have a few e7 offers from faang / database companies with Meta being the highest at 1.1m. A headhunter reached out asking if I’d be interested in doing a few expedited swe interviews with firms like Jane Street, HRT, Citadel, Jump, Tower, etc. I’ve always been curious about what it’s like working at trading firms, but can they beat my current offer and if so by how much? If they can’t beat my offer, what’s the typical tc progression to get to the 1-1.5m range at a trading firm? Also what level of c++/os/networks expertise do these firms require? I’ve worked on distributed storage systems and oltp/olap database query processing in c++ for ~7 years, but I am concerned if this level of c++/os/networks still isn’t deep enough for them. For example I’ve never had to write my own tcp stack and never had to code in assembly for my job. Yoe: 15 Current tc: 820
Something I didn’t realize in finance is that more than half your salary will be EoY bonus and many places won’t pay that out till the following summer. Nasty treadmill.
Same goes for tech sales. Majority of the salary is bonuses
Not true, big chunk is equity with fixed vesting schedule which cant be changed
Primary C++ skills needed at these firms are for their real-time/ no-delay systems which usually use newer protocols like grpc for data transfer. Oltp & database based applications are usually the back-burner ones doing batch processing at T+1
I wouldn’t be working on batch processing (at least I hope not). I’ve expressed that I’m only interested in order execution and market data swe teams
From someone in that industry, highly unlikely you’ll be considered for senior roles in order execution without order execution/low latency experience. Even if you do match that experience though, I doubt you’ll get that 1.1m pay. Even if you do get that pay first year, it will be hard to meet the bar for it the following year (they lure you in year one with high pay at 50% “performance based” bonus).
Nice offer congrats. Ask the recruiters before wasting time
Wow
I was a quant. At the equivalent of E7 you will make literally 1M-2M TC, but don't expect to make a lateral move, unless you can hit the ground running
What do you do now? My takeaway is that grass isnt too much greener (excuse me for the pun 💵) on the trading side?
I moved to corporate finance (tech finance), cfo path. I make way less but my life isn't miserable
Can they? Absolutely. Will they? Ehhh… with no finance experience it’s going to be a tough sell.
Is it purely issue if no finance experience or is the technical c++ depth also a mismatch? How do trading firms poach people who spent 10+ years in big tech (assuming they do at all)?
Citadel is right.. knowing maths (and quant) is an important skill along with c++ there.. I've seen people from core physics get picked there due to being good at math.
Dad?
But are you interested in finance? Tech is not a first class citizen in those firms.
Given the forced RTO/layoffs/general tightening of the belt I don't think tech is a first class citizen even in tech lol
Take that meta money and run now. No one is matching that in the current market from open recruiting.
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that headhunter is 3rd party, so it doesn't mean you'll get interviews with all those firms, although you probably will get with some. also tc and yoe