HFT Career Progression

Google / Eng
mccosh

Go to company page Google Eng

PRE
Amazon
mccosh
Jan 11, 2020 15 Comments

I'm in discussions with a couple HFTs, and I was curious about career progression. Specifically, how does one become an eng manager at these firms starting as a dev? How does one become eng lead of a larger org?

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TOP 15 Comments
  • I think op should tag companies like jump trading, quantlab, etc. not citadel or two sigma
    Jan 11, 2020 3
  • This comment was deleted by original commenter.

  • BTW Jane Street and most of Two Sigma is not HFT.

    It depends on how big the company is. Most HFT firms tend to be on the smaller side. For example there’s no way I could become a manager within 5-10 years unless my company becomes 3x its current size. I have no interest in becoming a manager here though, because there are many ways to lead projects and have a large amount of impact without having “manager” in your title.

    Why do you want to become a manager? If it’s TC then don’t bother because you can easily earn 2-3x your base (or more) as bonus if you’re a great developer. If you specifically want to do people management, then remaining at a tech company is probably the right choice. When you work with a small team of consistently high performing ICs, there’s much less demand for people managers.

    If you still want to be a manager in HFT I recommend looking at the larger companies like Citadel, Jump and HRT as opposed to the smaller ones.
    Jan 11, 2020 1
    • Oh and forgot to mention the portfolio manager path (e.g. for a place like Tower), but that’s very different to engineering manager and probably isn’t an option given your current situation.
      Jan 11, 2020
  • Cisco
    sirblargal

    Go to company page Cisco

    sirblargal
    Get hired in as a manager. Quant firms are small with flat structures, so management is rarely obtained through promotion. Worked for a different quant fund
    Jan 11, 2020 2