Having to choose between two different companies as a new graduate. I got a return offer from Apple and just got an offer from a Tier 2 HFT firm (not Jane Street, HRT, or Citadel) based in NYC. Apple has no location flexibility (I must be in Seattle). HFT firm can locate me to Texas (while keeping the same TC) if I ask, but I also might just wanna experience life in New York as a 21 year old for a bit but that might not be the most financially responsible thing to do. Both are SWE positions Tier 2 HFT TC: 330k+, New York Apple (ICT3, AI/ML) TC: 230k, Seattle What's better to pick? For now/long-term career growth YOE: 0
Man that’s a tough one. You build super cool skillz in hft, but otoh it’s kind of a pure drain of human capital to work there. Whereas apple makes super cool products and AI/ML prolly is gonna stick around a long time too. Depends on your personal prefs for nyc vs Seattle as well. I’d be a slight lean for apple. Make it a poll though.
Hft
I would straight up lean to the HFT, earn as much as money as possible for next 7-10yrs and straight up FIRE
Yeah, valid. The $ potential is infinite.
Congrats, that’s awesome. I grew up in SEA and now live in NYC. I’d lean toward HFT in NYC, as being young here and making good money is an amazing experience. But like others said, that’s a tough one - win/win for you.
NYC does seem really cool, but I don't know anyone there and have never been there. Is it easy to find a social circle?
You’ll likely start off hanging with ppl that you work with. But since so many ppl are transplants, making friends with those in a similar situation can be easy, just gotta be willing to venture out. My building has a ton of single ppl and we do group barbecues and random social gatherings.
Btw do you have master or PhD?
Do you want to do ML or tech in the long term? If so it’d be better to have relevant experience starting now vs later. If you’re agnostic on area of focus then I’d say go with HFT. Also NYC is amazing for a 22 year old. You can always move to Seattle or Texas when you’re old and boring (like me).
I am very agnostic. I just somehow stumbled into ML, but I have no particular desire to to do it forever.
If you don't have any industrial experience apart from prior Internship at Apple, I would say go where you would get a better ramp up and learning (I don't mean learning curve). Usually, the seeds for your working style and ethics in later years are sown in the beginning. I liked joining Goldman cause the people here were good and collaborative. On the downside, while engineers do strive to, we still may not follow the best practices to get task done (race against time). Would HFT need you to be a code churner without caring about code quality? Would Apple keep you in a silo with no cross team collaboration? Work wise, these are some of the points I would consider. Though I too agree given Comp, City, Taxes, Type of work, this is pretty tough decision to make. Perhaps a coin toss if nothing else works.
Taxes is a such a valid call out. WA has no state income tax, while in NYC we pay state AND city taxes. So in addition to your Roth IRA, 401K, and living expenses, your paycheck can get pretty slim. Wild to say for any TC over 200K, but true.
As someone doing (AI/ML) at AWS you'll still be doing mostly SDE shit. So 100% take the HFT offer. I don't even know why you'd ever consider Apple/Google with a 100k TC difference....
Because of taking the long view. 40 years is a long career and op’s choice this month will wildly change their life
You could jump to AI/ML sde position from any company that has software engineers. If OP has an offer for applied/research scientist role at Apple but only swe role at HFT then I'd understand better.
Optiver?
Solid offers man.. I wouldn’t know what to choose