Facebook vs HFT Firms in London
Hey Blinders, I am an E5 SWE @ Meta/FB London. Currently exploring switch options to HFT firms (like Hudson River Trading, Jane Street, Jump trading, 2 Sigma, Citadel, Optiver) as a software engineer in London. Though I am in early stages as of now, would like to get opinions to few of the following question. Looking for your answers to few/all of them. 1. How is engineering at HFT firms different compared to likes of Meta/FB? How is their culture different than Meta/FB? 2. How is the WLB at them? Do engineers really log 50-60+hrs/week here? 3. Do they have flat hierarchy or levels / promotion cycles etc-? 4. How does the interview process look like? Any suggestion for preparations? 5. What could be expected compensation range for them? How does salary components look for them (I guess they might not have stocks)? 6. Any short-sited/long-sited downside I should consider while making a move from FB to HFT? Current TC: ~£195000/Year (Including Base + Bonus + Stocks) YoE: 6 #tech #meta #facebook #hudsonrivertrading #janestreet #citadel #twosigma #jumptrading #optiver #hft
Yoe?
6yrs. Added in the post.
How many hours do you do at meta? I thought meta was 50-60 hours
It can't be generalised. Depends on team/project/etc. I've worked >50 for few halves and <40 for few too. But am trying to understand ballpark number for HFT firms here.
Jump WLB is pretty good 👍 Comp should be significantly higher than FAANG, especially in Europe
What’s comp like at Jump?
Competitive with all other tier1 trading firms. Varies pretty widely, usually relatively proportional to the value you create for the firm.
Get an offer first before worrying too much. I got some insane hards in HRT interview last time.
I interviewed with a couple of companies from those mentioned and I found my experience to be quite bad. I applied for a swe position in a trading team. I usually waited around a month in between rounds, it took 6 months from the initial call to the offer. My interviews were the usual mix of algo and design questions, nothing extreme on the algo side. There was also a more math/puzzle interview, without any coding. Ultimately, with 3 YoE i got an offer for 300k£ TC. That is base + bonus + sign on, there indeed is no stock
Do you get language specific questions? Or is it more like language-agnostic? Did you accept the offer btw?
2) i heard good things about WLB at Jane Street. 50ish hours a week. Citadel is known to be bad in terms of WLB 3) hierarchy is flat mostly, yeah 5) it’s base + bonus where bonus is the majority of your salary