Joined a back office SWE role in an HFT firm in Chicago (think DRW, Akuna, Optiver, IMC). The team works on maintaining and improving the book-keeping infra, fees, trading tools, and risk, so I'm writing a lot of C# and Python. Thinking very far into the future, what are some common exit opportunities for HFT SWEs? I'd want to move to a different city like New York or Seattle as I know more people there. Is there a demand for HFT SWEs that are not new grads in NY HFT firms and would Big-N look for SWEs from HFT firms?
If you’re planning to stay in back office there’s plenty hiring in NY. Arcesium (DE Shaw spin out) is a big one focused entirely on providing back office stuff as SAAS. Last I heard $500k cash - beats most tech If you want to move away from back office, try to switch into a front office or trading focused core role at current company first.
Thanks for the advice! I'll definitely will try to move to more front office projects. Do you know what roles transition well to Big-N? There are also data / infra roles that look interesting to me as I'm not too interested in the automated trading/low level side.
Back office is a deadend they lure you in with by offering decent initial comp compared to tech. The longer you stay the less employable you become outside of back office in finance. Plus growth is super hard unless you’re a top 10% performer which is hard when all your coworkers are no lifers. Basically get out ASAP ideally one year in right after securing signing bonus and year end bonus
Mm agree with the work I'm doing - I'll definitely try to be cognizant of not staying for too long. Do you have advice for roles that are in high demand for both HFT and Big-N?
The truth is getting into a real HFT team at an HFT firm is hard outside new grad. Basically they are only taking the best grads or existing HFT devs from other firms, who themselves joined as grads. Best bet is to try to join a front office team from a big tech company directly because as a back office dev they just dont want you (unless you are internally vetted as an exceptional dev)
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