6 ms·

One difference is Google, etc are all doing massive layoffs and i doubt JS, Citadel, etc will do this.

by kennend3 4y ago

nequo 4y ago
Note though that Citadel is reputed to have a turnover rate of 100% per year. Their layoffs take care of themselves.
- kennend3 4y ago
  This! My personal background is a "well known hedge fund" and the turnover there was rather high. Many quit because it wasn't "a good fit".
- hermitdev 4y ago
  I spent 9 years there, left a decade ago. Turnover is high, but this is a gross exaggeration. It is stressful, and not everyone can hack it. I was there during and after the '05 layoff when roughly 2/3s of IT was cut. That's still the worst I've heard of from what I hear from friends that are still there. Ken G definitely does the "Good to Great" getting the right people on the bus thing, which typically means the bottom 5-10% are cut, but even that was slowing before I left.
  - nequo 4y ago
    Thanks for correcting me. Did you get a sense of whether engineers had a higher or lower turnover rate than traders?
    - tomjerry777 4y ago
      The turnover for engineers tends to be lower than for traders at citadel and at a lot of quant firms. Additionally, the turnover for citadel is not evenly distributed across teams. Certain teams and orgs have a lot more turnover than others. Some teams are made up of people with <=2 YOE at company while others are made up of people with >=15 YOE at company.
radlad 4y ago
Really? Isn't FinTech getting hit harder than just about any other industry right now?
- kennend3 4y ago
  First, i dont consider Citadel, JS, etc "fintech" because they are not in the same line of work. " Fintech, a portmanteau of "financial technology", refers to firms using new technology to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services. " This is NOT what people like CIT, JS, etc. do. So maybe FinTech is being hit very hard, but from what i hear Cit, JS are doing just fine (no real layoffs).
  - smabie 4y ago
    Haha yea FinTech would be a pretty derogotory term to call a HFT firm
  - ecshafer 4y ago
    I agree that Two Sigma, Jane Street, Renaissance, etc. are NOT Fintech. Fintech is a really large umbrella which seems to includes people like Paypal or Bloomberg and things like robotraders or companies that deal with some financial product. Hedge Funds / HFT / Algo traders can be really sophisticated with their technology, but I wouldn't call them "Fintech".
- nvarsj 4y ago
  HFT makes money off of volatility. The more the world burns the more money they make by keeping markets liquid.
  - durumu 4y ago
    That’s true, in much the sense that doctors make money off people being sick. In times of high volatility, it’s HFTs that provide liquidity and keep spreads narrower than they’d otherwise be. It is extremely illegal to purposefully make markets more volatile; good trading firms are not going to do that.
paxys 4y ago
Smaller companies do layoffs as well. They just aren't as highly publicized as those at tech giants. Severance packages are usually worse/nonexistent as well. HFT companies also have much higher performance bars and rates of overwork/burnout. I'm willing to bet that people are leaving Jane Street, Citadel etc. (whether voluntarily or not) at much higher rates than large tech companies like Google.
- mmiyer 4y ago
  True of Citadel, but Jane Street is supposed to have a solid wlb, and because of the high pay and the few companies willing to pay at that level, people generally stick around there. These kind of finance companies also do better in volatility so they're definitely not laying off right now.
  - Ntrails 4y ago
    I would assume JS has industry standard levels of notice, non-compete and deferred comp - which will sure help keep people around
    - caddemon 4y ago
      Jane Street definitely does not have a non-compete. Citadel does though. Deferred compensation is probably not relevant to any of the major quant firms, payment is almost entirely cash. If you're high enough up to start receiving stake in a prop firm directly as part of your bonus you are an order of magnitude above the TC cited by the original comment. Of course, the amount of comp you can get is a big reason people stick around. For that level of earning potential JS is really good on the WLB front. But it's not going to be as good as big tech is (or at least has been), since QT/QR just has different requirements as a field.
      - Ntrails 4y ago
        > Deferred compensation is probably not relevant to any of the major quant firms, payment is almost entirely cash. Deferred != stock. > If you're high enough up to start receiving stake in a prop firm directly as part of your bonus you are an order of magnitude above the TC cited by the original comment. Fair
jrockway 4y ago
Where is Google doing layoffs? The latest news I have is that people are very worried about layoffs, but so far they've only started putting people on rebranded PIPs. The other FAANGs are definitely laying people off, though. I personally think the recession is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but regardless of my take on the fundamentals, it is certainly fulfilling itself and everyone in tech should be pretty worried right now. This is not the year when you're going to increase your salary by jumping to a cool startup as employee #3.
- kennend3 4y ago
  you are correct, it has not happened yet, but you willing to bet it wont in the next 6 months? https://www.seattletimes.com/business/google-employees-brace-for-cost-cutting-drive-as-anxiety-mounts/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/google-employees-brace... https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/22/google-tells-employees-higher-risk-of-low-performance-ratings-in-2023.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/22/google-tells-employees-highe...
- dasil003 4y ago
  > This is not the year when you're going to increase your salary by jumping to a cool startup as employee #3. Agreed, you won't get a big salary out of the gate because unproven startups paying huge salaries are dropping like flies as the easy capital dries up. On the other hand, the likelihood of getting in on the ground floor of the next FAANG is increasing as staffing costs decrease and behavioral changes increase during a recession. EV obviously still higher at established top-of-market companies, but when has that ever not been the case?

One difference is Google, etc are all doing massive layoffs and i doubt JS, Citadel, etc will do this.

nequo 4y ago

Note though that Citadel is reputed to have a turnover rate of 100% per year. Their layoffs take care of themselves.

kennend3 4y ago
This! My personal background is a "well known hedge fund" and the turnover there was rather high. Many quit because it wasn't "a good fit".
hermitdev 4y ago
I spent 9 years there, left a decade ago. Turnover is high, but this is a gross exaggeration. It is stressful, and not everyone can hack it. I was there during and after the '05 layoff when roughly 2/3s of IT was cut. That's still the worst I've heard of from what I hear from friends that are still there. Ken G definitely does the "Good to Great" getting the right people on the bus thing, which typically means the bottom 5-10% are cut, but even that was slowing before I left.
- nequo 4y ago
  Thanks for correcting me. Did you get a sense of whether engineers had a higher or lower turnover rate than traders?
  - tomjerry777 4y ago
    The turnover for engineers tends to be lower than for traders at citadel and at a lot of quant firms. Additionally, the turnover for citadel is not evenly distributed across teams. Certain teams and orgs have a lot more turnover than others. Some teams are made up of people with <=2 YOE at company while others are made up of people with >=15 YOE at company.

radlad 4y ago

Really? Isn't FinTech getting hit harder than just about any other industry right now?

kennend3 4y ago
First, i dont consider Citadel, JS, etc "fintech" because they are not in the same line of work. " Fintech, a portmanteau of "financial technology", refers to firms using new technology to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services. " This is NOT what people like CIT, JS, etc. do. So maybe FinTech is being hit very hard, but from what i hear Cit, JS are doing just fine (no real layoffs).
- smabie 4y ago
  Haha yea FinTech would be a pretty derogotory term to call a HFT firm
- ecshafer 4y ago
  I agree that Two Sigma, Jane Street, Renaissance, etc. are NOT Fintech. Fintech is a really large umbrella which seems to includes people like Paypal or Bloomberg and things like robotraders or companies that deal with some financial product. Hedge Funds / HFT / Algo traders can be really sophisticated with their technology, but I wouldn't call them "Fintech".
nvarsj 4y ago
HFT makes money off of volatility. The more the world burns the more money they make by keeping markets liquid.
- durumu 4y ago
  That’s true, in much the sense that doctors make money off people being sick. In times of high volatility, it’s HFTs that provide liquidity and keep spreads narrower than they’d otherwise be. It is extremely illegal to purposefully make markets more volatile; good trading firms are not going to do that.

paxys 4y ago

Smaller companies do layoffs as well. They just aren't as highly publicized as those at tech giants. Severance packages are usually worse/nonexistent as well. HFT companies also have much higher performance bars and rates of overwork/burnout. I'm willing to bet that people are leaving Jane Street, Citadel etc. (whether voluntarily or not) at much higher rates than large tech companies like Google.

mmiyer 4y ago
True of Citadel, but Jane Street is supposed to have a solid wlb, and because of the high pay and the few companies willing to pay at that level, people generally stick around there. These kind of finance companies also do better in volatility so they're definitely not laying off right now.
- Ntrails 4y ago
  I would assume JS has industry standard levels of notice, non-compete and deferred comp - which will sure help keep people around
  - caddemon 4y ago
    Jane Street definitely does not have a non-compete. Citadel does though. Deferred compensation is probably not relevant to any of the major quant firms, payment is almost entirely cash. If you're high enough up to start receiving stake in a prop firm directly as part of your bonus you are an order of magnitude above the TC cited by the original comment. Of course, the amount of comp you can get is a big reason people stick around. For that level of earning potential JS is really good on the WLB front. But it's not going to be as good as big tech is (or at least has been), since QT/QR just has different requirements as a field.
    - Ntrails 4y ago
      > Deferred compensation is probably not relevant to any of the major quant firms, payment is almost entirely cash. Deferred != stock. > If you're high enough up to start receiving stake in a prop firm directly as part of your bonus you are an order of magnitude above the TC cited by the original comment. Fair

jrockway 4y ago

Where is Google doing layoffs? The latest news I have is that people are very worried about layoffs, but so far they've only started putting people on rebranded PIPs. The other FAANGs are definitely laying people off, though. I personally think the recession is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but regardless of my take on the fundamentals, it is certainly fulfilling itself and everyone in tech should be pretty worried right now. This is not the year when you're going to increase your salary by jumping to a cool startup as employee #3.

kennend3 4y ago
you are correct, it has not happened yet, but you willing to bet it wont in the next 6 months? https://www.seattletimes.com/business/google-employees-brace-for-cost-cutting-drive-as-anxiety-mounts/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/google-employees-brace... https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/22/google-tells-employees-higher-risk-of-low-performance-ratings-in-2023.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/22/google-tells-employees-highe...
dasil003 4y ago
> This is not the year when you're going to increase your salary by jumping to a cool startup as employee #3. Agreed, you won't get a big salary out of the gate because unproven startups paying huge salaries are dropping like flies as the easy capital dries up. On the other hand, the likelihood of getting in on the ground floor of the next FAANG is increasing as staffing costs decrease and behavioral changes increase during a recession. EV obviously still higher at established top-of-market companies, but when has that ever not been the case?