Mentorship vs. Cash Compensation
Sep 26, 2018
17 Comments
I received an offer from a secret hedge fund:
$170k base salary
$85k-$170k cash bonus
YOE: 6
Job Description: Build trading systems from scratch and learn how to become a trader. All greenfield development, no legacy code.
I notified an external recruiter that I was working with that I did not want to schedule onsite interviews with N26 or Justworks because I had a better offer than they could match and he sent me this email below.
My question: is “mentorship” worth $100k in less cash compensation per year? What value do you place on engineering mentorship?
comments
It’s a very different experience. I used to work in investment banking and had the option to move to a hedge fund for 2x the TC. I didn’t because the work seemed to be the “algo optimising code monkey using c++” and at the time I was already burnt out working at the trading desk, my contribution to the world being making money for a select few people by arbitrages on the market. And I also did not like that the investment bank/hedge funds industry was so secretive: I like public speaking about the cool stuff I do, but this was outright banned in any form at both places.
I moved to FANG instead and my TC is now above that original hedge fund offer and I like to see my work being impactful to millions + being able to talk about it externally.
Btw I know the CTO of N26 and they are a very cool place (building a nextgen bank infrastructure from scratch). Their eng team is surprisingly good, but I know the Berlin guys only. Don’t know about the TC but they are one of the top players in the whole “nextgen bank” market, in Europe for sure. (I can connect you with him for a chat if you wanna send a PM)
I’ve been looking at a bunch of roles with N26 and curious about their org culture. I’m a director of an engineering division in a corporate digital ventures subsidiary and not liking the now toxic environment at the senior level. I read your comment and was hoping if I could speak with Valentin or Maximilian to get a sense of their org culture and growth. DM me if you could help. Much appreciated in advance.