New grad offer selection
Microsoft, optiver, stealth trading startup with 500mm aum Same 200k TC Which one would you pick in terms of career growth aka TC growth aka mullah growth?
Microsoft, especially as a new grad, it’s much better for your growth and resume. Would only consider optiver if there was a significant gap in TC. You’re a second class citizen at most of the trading firms as an SWE. Optiver isn’t Jane Street or Two Sigma.
What do you think swe at optiver is second class while at 2S/Jane Street isn’t? I am not sure about this, as different teams in the same company could vary a lot. From my knowledge, two sigma are not strong at high frequency trading, while optiver is. Swe on low latency system definitely first class.
Do you have BS?
I have a BS in math and cs
People don't know what optiver is. I would definitely choose optiver, especially if in Chicago. If it's in a high COL locations(like New York), then it's a much tougher choice. They have great perks(equal or better than msft apart from espp, including massage, food, etc.), good career progression, and you should be able to switch to other FAANGs/hedge funds and market makers without much difficulty. At msft, your raises will be super low especially initially.
I think what you're saying really depends on the specific role at Optiver. Not all of the technical roles will have similar progression/compensation tracks.
200k as a new grad in MSFT? What's the breakdown and level?
FWIW that doesn't seem surprising to me
L60 offer 118/175/50
MSFT including or exclusing signing bonus?
50k signing bonus
118/175/50 is ~180 TC + 50. I'm guessing Optiver is slightly higher than that (or maybe same) and lower COL and better benefits (100% 401k match (?), free food, etc). Since RSUs don't pay dividends, but underlying MSFT stock does, MSFT RSUs are stricly worse than RSUs that don't have dividends (e.g. GOOG). If market gets 0% inflation adjusted returns, MS RSUs will go down because of dividends; maybe you can negotiate a larger RSU grant on this basis. imo, Expexted TC growth: Trading startup > Optiver >> MS Risk: Trading startup >> Optiver > MS WLB: MS >> Optiver > Trading startup
True, wlb of msft >>>> other high paying tech companies.
I might also add the group at Microsoft is visual studio devdiv compiler tools