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From an outsider's point of view (still a CS student): If you are a CS/Physics/Math person who loves to optimize systems then this is a good way to get paid fo
by sgeisler 8y ago
From an outsider's point of view (still a CS student):
If you are a CS/Physics/Math person who loves to optimize systems then this is a good way to get paid for doing exactly that I guess. Many other problems/industries just require good enough solutions, with HFT it seems that most optimizations are worth it, which makes it so much more interesting.
- mruts 8y agoAll the remaining HFT firms (there's not that many left) have moved into FPGAs and ASICs as well. HFT is interesting because it's not really that finance related at all. The kind of people that work at HFT firms (at least the ones I've met) are exactly people like you're talking about: hardcore CS/EE guys. Some of them don't even care about financial markets at all, they just know how to program some blazing fast C++. I personally find HFT kind of a snooze and not especially intellectually gratifying. Most of the work is just wading through bullshit (write in interface to some random exchange , figure out how to remove an instruction here or there). Imo, things aren't looking so good for HFT. The profits are very slim at this point, and staying competitive is becoming exponentially more expensive. The golden years of super-normal profits and fat bonuses are over.