4 ms·

Slight tangent (sort of) - has anyone else noticed that a lot of these high speed trading firms are hiring a lot more FPGA engineers lately? Hudson River Tradin

Slight tangent (sort of) - has anyone else noticed that a lot of these high speed trading firms are hiring a lot more FPGA engineers lately? Hudson River Trading and Jane Street just to name a few. I regularly checked their job postings over the last year because I was looking for an internship, so that's why I noticed the change. Any thoughts?

pgwhalen 9y ago
There is barely any software in the hot path of competitive equity HFTs these days. Even the most finely tuned C++ is probably on the order of single digit micros tick to trade, but the goal is sub-micro.
- mhurd 9y ago
  State of the Art trade system performance from a couple of years ago: https://meanderful.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/trade-system-performance-state-of-art.html https://meanderful.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/trade-system-perf...
  - pgwhalen 9y ago
    Good source. I’m in the industry but not at an HFT, so my comment is more of a well-informed guess.
- physguy1123 9y ago
  There's a huge amount of software trading in the 1-10us range, probably more than pure hardware. Fpgas often play a role in these stacks as market data parsing/disseminating and order entry however.
  - pgwhalen 9y ago
    Sorry yeah, I didn’t mean there isn’t a lot of software that qualifies as HFT, but the very quickest seems pretty light on software.
    - physguy1123 9y ago
      The quickest in terms of tick-to-trade (MD received to trade) are certainly all hardware, but having better connectivity changes the game by a lot. Latency arb trades generally aren't that great, the most competitive in terms of PnL don't depend on (but usually utilize) tick-to-trade style speed.
ironSkillet 9y ago
From a handful of conversations I had with people in HFT, researchers develop models in more conventional languages like java or python. The decision boundaries of these models are then translated into FPGA instructions for speed.
senatorobama 9y ago
Time to skill up on FPGAs. Do FPGA engineers at trading firms get paid the same as quants or are they like sysadmins?
- tomalpha 9y ago
  Good ones get paid like devs in my experience which, depending on your mental model, is likely somewhere between a sysadmin and a quant. However successful trading firms tend to pay well, especially those who contribute to their bottom line. Good devs are usually not the highest paid, but could well be in the second highest paid tier.
  - paulie_a 9y ago
    From my understanding the pay night be very good but the quality of life is awful. If you last more than two to three years, that is impressive
    - tomalpha 9y ago
      It very much depends on the company you're working for. I've always been fairly keen on work/life balance and haven't found it that hard to find finance firms that respect (and even embrace) that way of thinking. Finance firms have increasingly had to compete with tech firms for tech talent and many have moved to offer similar benefits. Some do this because they believe it's inherently healthy, others because they feel they have to compete and it's a purely utilitarian matter. Others just offer more money instead. Interestingly, it's not always that much more in the long run.
      - senatorobama 9y ago
        Is it true that in finance you don't get RSUs but just get the money straight away in bonus?
        tomalpha 9y ago

pgwhalen 9y ago

There is barely any software in the hot path of competitive equity HFTs these days. Even the most finely tuned C++ is probably on the order of single digit micros tick to trade, but the goal is sub-micro.

mhurd 9y ago
State of the Art trade system performance from a couple of years ago: https://meanderful.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/trade-system-performance-state-of-art.html https://meanderful.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/trade-system-perf...
- pgwhalen 9y ago
  Good source. I’m in the industry but not at an HFT, so my comment is more of a well-informed guess.
physguy1123 9y ago
There's a huge amount of software trading in the 1-10us range, probably more than pure hardware. Fpgas often play a role in these stacks as market data parsing/disseminating and order entry however.
- pgwhalen 9y ago
  Sorry yeah, I didn’t mean there isn’t a lot of software that qualifies as HFT, but the very quickest seems pretty light on software.
  - physguy1123 9y ago
    The quickest in terms of tick-to-trade (MD received to trade) are certainly all hardware, but having better connectivity changes the game by a lot. Latency arb trades generally aren't that great, the most competitive in terms of PnL don't depend on (but usually utilize) tick-to-trade style speed.

ironSkillet 9y ago

From a handful of conversations I had with people in HFT, researchers develop models in more conventional languages like java or python. The decision boundaries of these models are then translated into FPGA instructions for speed.

senatorobama 9y ago

Time to skill up on FPGAs. Do FPGA engineers at trading firms get paid the same as quants or are they like sysadmins?

tomalpha 9y ago
Good ones get paid like devs in my experience which, depending on your mental model, is likely somewhere between a sysadmin and a quant. However successful trading firms tend to pay well, especially those who contribute to their bottom line. Good devs are usually not the highest paid, but could well be in the second highest paid tier.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  From my understanding the pay night be very good but the quality of life is awful. If you last more than two to three years, that is impressive
  - tomalpha 9y ago
    It very much depends on the company you're working for. I've always been fairly keen on work/life balance and haven't found it that hard to find finance firms that respect (and even embrace) that way of thinking. Finance firms have increasingly had to compete with tech firms for tech talent and many have moved to offer similar benefits. Some do this because they believe it's inherently healthy, others because they feel they have to compete and it's a purely utilitarian matter. Others just offer more money instead. Interestingly, it's not always that much more in the long run.
    - senatorobama 9y ago
      Is it true that in finance you don't get RSUs but just get the money straight away in bonus?
      - tomalpha 9y ago