I have a SWE offer for either a trading desk or a back office position. Any general pros/cons to consider? My concern with a trading desk is potentially high level of stress or long hours or having to rush quick ugly hacks into production. My concern with back office is that it sounds a bit dry and might not look impressive on a resume. Are those concerns real? What other factors should I consider?
Do you want to get paid a lot or not?
I guess so, but not if life is hell for example.
Several years experience (not a college hire). Unfortunately, I'm not comfortable sharing the offer because it's trivial to identify me from the info in this post.
Back office might have better WLB, but you're always gonna be front office support and second tier employee. If you want better WLB and can get two sigma why not go to FAANG?
Careful with the potential big TC. When your WLB tanks and frustration starts, your big TC might not be big enough to wipe down your tears.
This ^
What does back office mean? I don’t think we really use that term here. I don’t think there’s a significant comp difference if at all between departments. If I were you I’d find out more about the type of work you’d be doing and the people you’re going to work with than chasing this elusive comp bump for desk devs.
Yeah, I didn't mention any concerns about TC in my post, it's just that's what all Blind commenters focus on. :) Mostly wondering if there's a quality of life difference between being a desk dev and a non-desk dev in general or if there are other significant differences that can be described with broad brush strokes.
The official line is that devs across all departments have similar pay. I think working on a trading desk is a more stressful, fast paced job. I think the culture feels more similar to the firm’s trading culture. I have an unsubstantiated hunch that desk devs tend to have a higher TC (or just spend more). You also get to know a lot more about the business and trading. I’m assuming by back office you’re referring to post trade. Post trade is a lot more like a tech company. It’s not quite a tech company, but a lot more people are hired out of tech, and it’s more similar to tech than the trading desks are. You’re working on more classic tech company problems around processing large amounts of data, idk if you’d find that interesting or dry. The culture is definitely more relaxed and chill. Not chill by tech standards, but chill by finance standards.
> You’re working on more classic tech company problems around processing large amounts of data, idk if you’d find that interesting or dry. Ah, gotcha, I was referring to the business/accounting logic being dry. Classic tech company problems dealing with lots of data is my jam.
Yeah I mean to a degree I guess you would call a lot of it accounting problems, but like accounting with a lot of data
I'm a desk dev. I really enjoy being able to work on lots of smaller projects, while in general it seems like the core engineering teams work on fewer, larger projects. WLB is good on both. I usually work ~9:30-6. (Though I often leave at 4:30 or 8, depending on how I'm feeling). Feel free to PM me
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desk = higher TC. What else do you need