YOE: 1 (Laid Off) Location: NYC Conflicted about two possible paths I could take. Option 1: Data Engineer at Small Hedge Fund 20ish people, <$5B AUM TC: 150K base + perf bonus (50K+ on good years) Not a HFT or quant fund by any means, but the firms has been successful. Only one other engineer. I’ll get to interface directly with the partners and traders, (they described it as a middle office role) but the company’s tech stack is dated and the role isnt clearly defined. Seems like a fun environment though, and they have low attrition. Option 2: Data Engineer at Fintech Startup 2 years of runway TC: 150K + paper money equity Seems like a SQL heavy role, which I don’t love (basically an Analytics Engineer). Tech stack is more modern though (Snowflake, Airflow). I’d be their first DE but there’s a DS Manager that I would report to. I’ve been warned by a few people in the interview process about WLB. Seems like it would be 10-12 hour days. I think the company will be successful though. They also have impressive investors and lots of Ex FAANG employees. #engineering #data #hedgefund #fintech
Choose the finTech. Tech >>> finance, especially avoid non-quant hedge fund. Trust me, I worked in a non-quant hedge fund, and the “tech” people there just maintain a database and some internal UIs. It’s glorified customer support, your customer being the trader who sits next to you. If you care about your future, run for the finTech Also, if the hedge fund does quant strategy ( or have plans to do quant strategy ) then choose the hedge fund
Option 1 if you want a chill job, you will hit a ceiling around 400k in your career Option 2 if you can chase highs. Always a good idea to learn latest tech, especially when you are starting
Don’t get tricked by the hedge fund. Traditional finance people don’t care about tech and your coding probably won’t help them make more money
I’m going with the Hedge Fund. The Fintech pay is lower than I thought and the culture seems toxic. I’ll get a ton of autonomy with the Hedge Fund, and it seems they’ll value me. I got to speak with every partner and trader during the interview process.
How do you feel about your decision now?
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