What are the absolute highest prestige places to work for as a specialist SWE (let’s say any speciality is in play, I mean “not just a mover of protos”)? Obviously Google and Facebook by themselves ain’t it. Google X? Google Brain? Deepmind? Facebook AI Research? Facebook Reality Labs Research? OpenAI? Finance is obviously RenTech but come on. Interested to hear where opinion falls these days. What makes the jaws drop at the parties in 2020? TC $605k
Yoe?
10
no one cares where you work anymore. All about TC and where you live.
Ok, where should one live? Imagine I know nothing Jon Snow except how to persuade companies to part with large sums of money to employ me.
Pac Heights in SF or Woodside.
You show your W2 to your friends to drop their jaws. Assert your dominance
I’m only top quarter or so in my social circle, we have all discussed comp with each other.
@AMZN - also, know that your w2 is only your income. most successful people have business and use 1099s as their bigger sheet (millions per year, and usually sheltered by having a business)
Almost any prop trading firm beats FANG AI research labs "prop trading", "finance" => "this guy fucks", "damn", "well shit", "MLE", "scientist", "FANG" => "bunch of nerds", "introvert", "rest and vest"
Within the prop trading space, what should be top of the list? HRT, Jane Street, what else? Obviously I know next to nothing about this area. I know for hedge funds I should also consider RenTech (lol) and D.E. Shaw. What else?
There was a post the other day but it went something like this: Tier 0: RenTec, Jane Street Tier 1: HRT, Citadel Tier 2 hedge funds: DE Shaw, Two Sigma, PDT Partners Tier 2 prop shops: Tower, Jump, DRW, IMC, Akuna, Optiver, Old Mission, Voleon, Five Rings Most of the top finance firms are tiny compared to FANG. The largest are ~1,000 employees (Jane Street, Citadel). Most are 100-200 person firms the like to stay under the radar But the name of the firm doesn't really matter. If you're in "quant finance", it's automatically assumed you're smarter, work harder, and are richer than your FANG peers -- which is usually true.
Prestige = income. Anything different is BS.
Wait until your stock tanks again. You’ll have different definition. Prestige is where most can’t get, not where they can get reasonably easily and make a bank fortunately due to something becoming a fad!
You said it red hat. Prestige is what's left when your stock has tanked.
Owning your own company probably beats out most jobs. If you’re an employee somewhere the ceiling is relatively low. Bar like high up VPs and executives. End of the day most people don’t give a shit where you work. NASA probably sounds cooler to most than Jane Street
Are you Indian?
Not that it’s relevant, but no.
What makes the jaws drop at the parties in 2020? LMAO...this is so pathetic
OP's comments are the gift that keeps on giving LMAO
I cringed at op
Where did you end up going op? Did you find your answer elsewhere?
Regardless of the employer, 605k TC will make enough jaws to drop at any party. Congrats.
Thank you, but I prefer not to whip my W2 out at parties. I’ve spent a lot of time optimizing for money and now am thinking I should start optimizing more for status. Maybe shallow of me, but in the absence of clear other goals to optimize for...
How did you optimize for money? 605k is indeed very impressive 👍