7 ms·

This industry irks me. What's the point of doing engineering anywhere if you don't get paid as much as these guys to shift money around?

by zump 11y ago

OscarCunningham 11y ago
Providing something useful to the world. Reasonable hours. Not having to do any statistics.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
minimax 11y ago
The pay in these sorts of articles is always overhyped. As with any business, the people making the most money at these kinds of firms are the owners of the firms. Consider this line “As a trader, if you do well, you will retire before you turn 30,” said one employee on an industry message board. That is basically 100% unattributed, unconfirmed bullshit.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- geofft 11y ago
  Yeah, I feel like "As a founder, if you do well, you will retire before you turn 30" is the sort of thing I could totally expect to read here, even though there would be plenty of "what are you talking about" replies.
- mrchicity 11y ago
  Yeah that sounds like complete bullshit to me. I know some top quant traders who make high-six/low-seven figure comp consistently at that point in their careers, but they're nowhere near able to retire with a comfortable lifestyle, and that's an extremely biased sample. For every person like them, 100 others fail early on, 10 stick around making a nice but not much higher than Google salary, and 5 have a couple busy high comp years then get pushed out by greedy management, have their edge eaten by competitors, or quit when the markets slow down. Getting to that level is like making partner in a law firm. You have to do much better than "well" and anyone who gets there would be a fool to retire and likely wouldn't want to anyway due to the personality traits/defects required to get there in the first place.
- LittlePeter 11y ago
  For what it's worth, I have seen couple of such traders, below 30 and able to retire (as in couple millions in the bank). The thing is, what you mean by "if you do well". In the cases I observed, for every trader that did well for themselves there were 49 that did not.
ryporter 11y ago
What's the point of doing engineering anywhere if you don't get paid as much as those other guys to shift ads around?
- teddyh 11y ago
  You might think that you're joking, but I agree with you. A pox on both their houses.

This industry irks me. What's the point of doing engineering anywhere if you don't get paid as much as these guys to shift money around?

by zump 11y ago

This industry irks me. What's the point of doing engineering anywhere if you don't get paid as much as these guys to shift money around?

OscarCunningham 11y ago

Providing something useful to the world. Reasonable hours. Not having to do any statistics.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

minimax 11y ago

The pay in these sorts of articles is always overhyped. As with any business, the people making the most money at these kinds of firms are the owners of the firms. Consider this line “As a trader, if you do well, you will retire before you turn 30,” said one employee on an industry message board. That is basically 100% unattributed, unconfirmed bullshit.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
geofft 11y ago
Yeah, I feel like "As a founder, if you do well, you will retire before you turn 30" is the sort of thing I could totally expect to read here, even though there would be plenty of "what are you talking about" replies.
mrchicity 11y ago
Yeah that sounds like complete bullshit to me. I know some top quant traders who make high-six/low-seven figure comp consistently at that point in their careers, but they're nowhere near able to retire with a comfortable lifestyle, and that's an extremely biased sample. For every person like them, 100 others fail early on, 10 stick around making a nice but not much higher than Google salary, and 5 have a couple busy high comp years then get pushed out by greedy management, have their edge eaten by competitors, or quit when the markets slow down. Getting to that level is like making partner in a law firm. You have to do much better than "well" and anyone who gets there would be a fool to retire and likely wouldn't want to anyway due to the personality traits/defects required to get there in the first place.
LittlePeter 11y ago
For what it's worth, I have seen couple of such traders, below 30 and able to retire (as in couple millions in the bank). The thing is, what you mean by "if you do well". In the cases I observed, for every trader that did well for themselves there were 49 that did not.

ryporter 11y ago

What's the point of doing engineering anywhere if you don't get paid as much as those other guys to shift ads around?

teddyh 11y ago
You might think that you're joking, but I agree with you. A pox on both their houses.