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There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, be

There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. I interviewed at a trading firm once, while I was working at Netflix (because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year). The comp would have been double my Netflix salary. But I would have had to work in their office in Manhattan, be in by 8:30am every day and not leave until after 5 at a miniumum. But that wasn't the part that scared me off. It was the fact that I would not be allowed to share my work internally. I would not even be allowed to brainstorm with people doing the same job in other areas of the business. I wouldn't be allowed to take my laptop home, so if I had a hard problem to solve, I'd have to stay in the office the whole time. So basically they expected us to never see our family nor collaborate with anyone. Basically, they were so worried about secrecy of their trading algorithms and people sharing them with other companies, they didn't even let people share internally for fear that one person would learn too much about their business. I decided to stick with my FAANG job because even the ridiculous money wasn't enough to make it worth the stress and isolation.

jensensbutton 4y ago
> It was the fact that I would not be allowed to share my work internally. I would not even be allowed to brainstorm with people doing the same job in other areas of the business. This is what Apple does as well. So not all FAANGs are equal here.
- jedberg 4y ago
  My understanding is that Apple will let you collaborate after what you're working on is public. They just don't want people accidentally sharing unreleased stuff with people who aren't cleared to know about it.
  - jensensbutton 4y ago
    I've been told by folks who work on infra there that they need to file requests to even talk to the previous owners of code if that person has moved to a diff role. So I don't think it's just for unannounced products.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ablatt89 4y ago
    Once something is released, there's general access given for that particular software/hw but it still needs to be requested. In a weird way, it creates some internal excitement on "secret" releases but obviously makes development much more difficult.
deleted 4y ago
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gadders 4y ago
Not sure how that typical that is. Maybe if you're interviewing at a hedge fund to work on their trading algorithms then it's possible. If you're doing general quant library or low latency stuff at an IB I wouldn't say this wouldn't happen but I'd say it's definitely not common.
jstx1 4y ago
> because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year Can you tell us more about this? What's their reason for it?
- SpaghettiX 4y ago
  Netflix would increase the salary of employees if they had higher offers. This idea is supported by Reed Hastings and IIRC was mentioned in https://www.norulesrules.com/ https://www.norulesrules.com/. To get a raise, you are encouraged to get a job offer with that salary to prove you're worth it.
- jedberg 4y ago
  Netflix separated pay and performance. Your performance was evaluated all year, and if you weren't a top performer, you were let go. In the spring we would do 360 reviews, where anyone could write a review of anyone else, to give candid feedback (although giving candid feedback was encouraged all year, but this gave you a formal outlet to do it). In the fall, your pay was evaluated (and kicked in at the new year). You were paid on the assumption that you were a top performer (otherwise you would have already been let go), so they would adjust you to "how much would we have to pay them to get them in the door today". They needed data for that calculation. One source of data was how much they had to offer new hires to get in the door. A second source was industry salary surveys. And a third source was your offer letters from other companies, if you chose to share them. If you get a huge offer elsewhere, they would maybe match it, or maybe tell you that you're better off going to that other offer. It also served another purpose. It gave you a chance to look at that other offer (assuming you could get one) and really thing about whether you still liked your job at Netflix enough to stay. They wanted people to be happy about continuing to work there, and were supportive of you leaving if you weren't happy, because they know you do your best work when you enjoy it. FWIW, my raises at Netflix were typically 20%+, and so were a lot of people, because they economy was on fire at the time.
  - jstx1 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing! The focus on paying top compensation is very different from anywhere I've worked.
stagger87 4y ago
Just to clarify, you used the word "abuse" several times to describe a job where you would have to work in office between 8:30 to 5 and pull (I'm safely assuming) half a million dollars a year?
- GlenTheEskimo 4y ago
  Historically Netflix only had one level of engineer (this changed last year) with a starting salary of $400k, so I'm guessing it was substantially more than half a million.
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  Not sure about GP, but money isn't everything. If I feel like I'm being treated badly, under stress, and lonely, no money can compensate that.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    This is me. There are lots of jobs that you literally could not pay me enough to do, because they'll make my life miserable. I'd rather be underpaid and enjoy working than make millions and hate life.
  - m00x 4y ago
    It depends on what your original amount of money is. I'd rather work my ass off and be abused than be broke and afraid I can't provide for my family. I'd go from 30k to 100k regardless of work conditions, but not from 350k to 700k.
    - bloqs 4y ago
      Avoiding more bad is more heavily weighted than seeking more good in the brain generally but this heavily differs between people. For many, adding more bad is only offset by an rougly an order of magnitude more good.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    I've not seen double, but I've seen a 50% increase, at assuredly a much lower comp level than Netflix, so, far higher marginal-utility for that income, and still wished I hadn't done it about 2 months in. Like, if you'd put a button in front of me and pressing it would undo it like it'd never happened, I'd have pressed it without hesitation. And they weren't even working me long hours or being outright mean to me or anything, the place and the work were just dreary as fuck and it was making me feel like shit even in my off hours. I had another job by month 4, and took a pay hit (though not all the way down to my prior level) to get out fast.
geph2021 4y ago
Basically, they were so worried about secrecy of their trading algorithms and people sharing them with other companies Which means if you took the job they probably would have had you sign some obscene non-complete/non-solicit/non-disparage/non-roll-your-eyes-at-them agreement. Despite the dubious enforceability of these, especially in some jurisdictions, you would still likely experience a lot of stress and expense (i.e. lawyer-up) if your departure rubbed someone the wrong way. Your exit from the trading world could involve: - demands to keep them informed of what you were doing - private investigators checking in on what you are doing - threatening legal letters - or actually being sued And that's if you did your very best to follow the non-compete agreement. If you were actually taking employment in a field remotely related to finance, you could have the DOJ/FBI knocking on your door to investigate trade-secrete theft. EDIT: And another point about "double the comp". The comp structured so that 75% is a discretionary annual bonus payout (with claw backs), and your base salary is 25%. So you could actually end up making less money, depending on the whims of the markets and/or internal politics.
madduci 4y ago
Maybe they can't find new talents because they are looking for cheap workforce?
mempko 4y ago
As someone who is a huge proponent of Free Software an an open culture and also who now runs a trading firm now, I completely agree with you. The industry is incredibly frustrating, especially to engineers and scientists. Because, by our very nature, we want to share our ideas and collaborate, because the best work is done together. There are no secrets internally at my company. Because I believe, in the long run, and open culture will win. But you aren't wrong about the industry in general. It's crazy frustrating.
mvuksano 4y ago
I worked in a high frequency trading company before. They had similar concerns about secrecy but I loved it. Even today I think it was the best job ever. Now I moved to the States and thinking of going back down the high frequency trading route again. I learned so much about computers - probably more then in any uni. By the way, work life balance was way better then in any FAANG company (I worked for two FAANG companies afterwards). Nobody ever expected me to be in before 930am and nobody ever expected me after 6pm.
- jedberg 4y ago
  > Now I moved to the States and thinking of going back down the high frequency trading route again.... Nobody ever expected me to be in before 930am and nobody ever expected me after 6pm. That's probably because you worked somewhere with decent employee protections, since it sounds like you worked outside of the USA.
  - trzy 4y ago
    I also worked in the space, with Morgan Stanley’s options market making desk. It was all very sane. I’ve heard some of the prop shops and hedge funds can be crazy but not all are like that.
  - elteto 4y ago
    You keep making these sort of statements on this thread while showing an obvious lack of knowledge about what is actually like working in the industry.
- nvarsj 4y ago
  I kind of agree with you. Having worked at HFT and now FAANG, I found HFT more satisfying and challenging overall - although it did have its issues, which is why I left. It's like a start up / small company culture with great compensation - you have a direct impact very easily and it's obvious when others aren't pulling their weight. The one I joined had 10 hours a day (8-6) in the contract, but no one worked more than 8 hours in the office and they actually had very flexible hours as long as you delivered. FAANG pays well but it is plagued with big company issues which can be very frustrating to talented engineers who just want to get stuff done.
papito 4y ago
I know people here have a lot of issues with the word "abuse", but that is true. I only had a few days in my life where I was productive in the office for that long. Just after three days in a row of 8:30AM to 6PM would burn me out and I would be sleep-deprived and useless for the rest of the week, so why am I forced to suffer? They are paying one lemon a year so I HAVE to be in the office? It's just amazingly stupid, but that's American school of management for you. I did crazy things when I was younger, and I would NOT subject myself to those now, so yeah - abuse.
jasmer 4y ago
That's not 'abuse' and it's a material concern they have. It also has something do with the 2x pay.
wyclif 4y ago
It's also a big problem that trading firms absolutely hate remote work because of their secrecy/security demands. I've been working remote for the past seven years. Sorry not sorry, but I'm never again going to work in a cube farm or an open office bullpen.
fxtentacle 4y ago
Fully agree. I've also seen my fair share of very restrictive no-remote work offers, but they didn't even offer exceptional pay in exchange. And those C++ automotive jobs in Germany? Sorry, I'm not even going to interview for 70k€ annually.
- delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
  > And those C++ automotive jobs in Germany? Sorry, I'm not even going to interview for 70k€ annually. I'd take that job in a heartbeat. Working on cars? Check. Nice European country? Check. Work-life balance? Double-check. What's not to like? Maybe it's because I'm looking for fresh graduate jobs, and 70000€ looks very attractive to me, even with a 35% tax.
  - fooker 4y ago
    > Nice European country? The grass is always greener on the other side. :) If you don’t like the idea of living in San Francisco or Chicago, you’ll hate it at most of the large European cities. Small towns are a different manner.
    - dodyg 4y ago
      In large European cities you don't have to worry about getting shot
    - drblastoff 4y ago
      Cities are not all alike. I enjoy living in my current city, but would never move back to San Francisco.
    - delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
      I'm not American. I think almost all European cities are a lot smaller and a lot less dense than Singapore is. And they have equivalent public transport, amenities, etc. Make no mistakes, I don't have any illusions about cultural differences and am perfectly aware of grass-greener-on-other-side syndrome. I just don't want to be stuck in a 700 km^2 island all my life.
impossiblefork 4y ago
>Basically, they were so worried about secrecy of their trading algorithms and people sharing them with other companies, they didn't even let people share internally for fear that one person would learn too much about their business. That's probably actually required though. There's a book called 73 Rules of Spycraft by Allens Dulles and these are obviously relevant for financial trading: Rule 2, 3 and 4, are I think, the relevant ones in this case. Especially 4: >No matter how brilliant a given individual, no matter how great his goodwill, if he is lacking in security, he will eventually prove more of a liability than asset.
- snordgren 4y ago
  These firms are in the business of finding and exploiting opportunities in the markets, before too many people know about them and the opportunity disappears. One person who knows too much could be an existential threat to the firm.
  - impossiblefork 4y ago
    Some of them are, others build models that they develop over a long time.
tomtom1818 4y ago
I feel like some people responding to you have been nowhere close to a finance role. First, those 8-5 hrs are only stated by your contract. Everybody on HN complains that "unlimited" PTO obviously does not mean "unlimited". Same as your "strictly " 8-5 working hours. There is a high level of peer pressure to get things done immediately. Working in a mid office role, I frequently had front office at moment's notice ask to implement complex deals while trying to understand their vague descriptions of said deal. Now I have to spend an hour with them to parse out what they want. Good luck trying to have a mutual conversation with the front office in a high stress situation. I had to once implement a completely new computational feature to the code base in two days just to accommodate a single deal. And don't dare think that you can get into flow... So not only can some of these deals have long compute times, but then you have front office analysts pinging you every hour to see "how are things shaping up" and if you have something ready. Not only do you have your own tasks set by your direct manager, but you have several analysts on your ass that could drop a complaint at any second. In the end, you have multiple bosses. If they are unhappy with how fast you are delivering, you can bet your direct report will one day hear about it. There goes your performance review and year end bonus. Now not only do I have multiple people at work on my ass, my family is pissed that Dad has to work late this evening because he was given something to work on that needs to be delivered asap. Don't get me started on the snark by the back office. Not only can get shit on by front office, but the level of unhelpfulness by the back office made shit roll down from all sides. You did the right thing for you and your family.
sharperguy 4y ago
I wouldn't really call it abuse, as long as all those expectations are clear up front. If they cannot function without those expectations being met by their developers, and are willing to pay a significantly higher salary to compensate for the inconvinence in comparison to other jobs, it just is what it is.
xwolfi 4y ago
It's a bit melodramatic.I work on a trading floor in Hong Kong from 9 to 7 which is less than most colleagues and allows me to take my kid to school in the morning and see her plenty in the evening (my dad had a small store and he'd do 8 to 8... 8:30 to 5 is really not normal neither in France or Hong Kong where I worked). I can remote work, or remote connect to solve a hard problem, there's ofc a way to change these. As for sharing code internally, yeah, I fight for it and I get it (I m a Java dev and we need to reverse a lot of old C++ that the OGs gatekeep, takes lots of escalation to breach the "need to know" BS). I think you can largely lower your salary to get a more junior position with no stress: I was a team lead working 6 to 11 in a startup jungling with timezone between mexico and Indonesia, and I joined the investment bank as a junior idiot for a cool 20% increase. And I refuse promotion, why do you think you d be forced to take the money and the pressure ?
easytiger 4y ago
> There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. With all due respect you don't know what you are talking about. This doesn't represent my 15+ year experience in that domain. > But I would have had to work in their office in Manhattan, be in by 8:30am every day and not leave until after 5 at a miniumum. Must have been a back office job because that's not early enough for trading hours.
- boppo1 4y ago
  Tell me more about your experience, please. I've been learning C++ with an interest in the field.
andirk 4y ago
This is one of the best threads yet! - Guy says he turned down a bunch of money for work/life balance reasons - Nah - Guy has to respond to dozens of nay-sayers telling them he was perfectly happy with his current dump truck of money thank you very much
- elteto 4y ago
  That is _not_ what he said at all, and many others have said as much. He said he was going to be _abused_. Really? Abused? Only someone with an extreme level of privilege and disconnect could use that word in that context. And he complaints about abuse while working for... AMAZON. Seriously? The irony is palpable here. I have yet to hear the stories about Citadel firing workers because they took a bathroom break.
optimiz3 4y ago
Also, making 1M in NYC is like making 500k in Redmond due to no city and state income taxes.
elteto 4y ago
Them: “$500k to $1M cash compensation, you have to maintain some opsec and be in the office during regular working hours.” You: “This is OUTRAGEOUS! Hard pass.” We sw devs can be a spoiled bunch sometimes.
- valdiorn 4y ago
  Parent poster explained this very poorly, but it's not as simple as "office hours are x to y". You are responsible for a trading system that's turning over hundreds of millions a day. If you're not in the office by 8am or whatever, that's not a "hey you were a bit late this morning" - it's a major "wake up the CEO the engineer on call is not present and we're not trading"! It's BAD. your train ran late? Doesn't matter, you're responsible. Your boiler exploded? Leave your house flooded, work comes first. It's EXTREME pressure all around. I've done overnight support for a fairly infamous quant fund and I'm still on medication 5 years later because of the anxiety disorder I developed whilst working there. To this date the Blackberry ringtone triggers a PTSD response and I get physically sick if I hear it.
  - elteto 4y ago
    I'm sorry to hear about your experience, that sounds rough. I do know that support roles in the finance industry hit _hard_ and the difference between one person's work environment can be the complete opposite of someone else in the same position in a different company, or even in the same company but a different team. I spoke with someone recently who is in sales for a large finance behemoth we've all heard about and even that person was like "Goldman is the worst, I'd never go there." But, most developers in quant roles, or close to quant roles (trading infrastructure, research support, etc) do not experience anything like this. On call is rare for these positions and they have regular work schedules with normal hours. Plus the compensation is multiples of what someone in an overnight support role will get paid. You probably know all this.
    - valdiorn 4y ago
      I'm a developer in a quant role, and basically every job I've looked at in this market has similar requirements. See my other comment in this thread about the absurd support burden at XTX markets. I was at Man AHL for 5 years after leaving GR and that is a pretty laid back company in comparison. I was not on a trade critical team per se, but some of our system were used for pre-flight checks. As such, if there was an issue the on call person got called at 5 am to sort it out. If not resolved within an hour or so, the cio/cro got called and had to decide whether to trade regardless or not. Thankfully not a common issue but definitely at least a call or two every time you did support.
deleted 4y ago
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DrBazza 4y ago
You didn't take a job because it's 8.30 to 5 and because of some undefined 'abuse'? That's what you've written? Maybe it really isn't for you. On the other hand I've worked in this industry for 30 years, and done those hours, and longer, for 30 years, and enjoyed more or less every minute of it. I've flown all over the world, and been to various events and conferences that I would not have had a chance to do in another career. I'm not clear what 'abuse' you think you're going to get. We are in a fortunate position in life actually, that we're developers that can change jobs on a whim and there's a large marketplace for our skills. My advice to you is that you should actually have taken the role, gained some experience of a different industry (the first 6 months will be low responsibility), and if it's not for you, leave. > It was the fact that I would not be allowed to share my work internally I've only heard of one company that's as mad as that and they start with 'G'.
- valdiorn 4y ago
  I worked for the G company I'm assuming you're referring to :) I left because of the insane paranoid culture. I do however share the same sentiment as the parent poster - I interviewed for XTX for a c++ role when I quit and during one of the interviews I asked about on-call rota and out of hours work. The answer I got: "oh, it's not too bad. We have a weekly rota, you can expect to get called maybe 3 or 4 times... a night". I noped the fuck out of that. Others like Citadel and Jump were similar stories. Many have made offers but a combination of insane out of hours requirements and non compete clauses means I've told them all to shove it, and took an "underpaying" role to achieve some kind of balance in my life.
  - jleahy 4y ago
    That was 6 years ago and it was indeed tough back then, we were rewriting a huge trading system from Java -> C++ while trying to keep our edge. However, we succeeded and things have changed considerably since. We also have a dev working in Singapore now which makes support significantly better. We were at least honest in the interview process regarding hours, there are companies where you would only find that out after starting. There were people who were willing to go through that pain and I think they would agree they were well rewarded but I understand some people want different things from their careers.
pyuser583 4y ago
How secure was the job? Netflix has a reputation for firing quickly.
Olumde 4y ago
You forget the abuse. In most jobs software engineers are the revenue generators. In the trading industry software engineers are just something that stands between the traders and their bonus. And the traders can get really rude.
quicknir 4y ago
It's a pretty drastic assertion (and quite HN worthy) that a whole industry is abusing their developers, based on not even one job, but your impression of a job based on an interview. And assertions like "they expected us never to see our family", because you couldn't take your laptop home? Maybe if you had taken that job, you would have left the office at 5 pm, 95% of the time. Maybe not, of course, but you don't actually know. I've been working in HFT for nearly ten years, in multiple different roles. I've met well over a hundred developers in the business, have at least a dozen I'd call friends, who are spread over nearly as many companies at this point in time. Most folks have had overwhelmingly positive experiences in the industry. Like anything there are exceptions, but I've seen no evidence of a systemic problem in the field. I know a few people who left my firm to go to Facebook and found it more stressful there, for instance. Certainly, I've worked with very very experienced ex-gamedevs, who would say unequivocally that developer abuse is a far bigger systemic issue in game dev than in finance. Obviously it's fine to post your take but it should be tempered by the relative amount of experience you have.
b20000 4y ago
i have no problem with any of the above. when i interviewed for netflix i had to study their ridiculous culture document and found out it was a cult. i heard terrible stories of people being insulted openly. and you have to deal with endless leetcode bullshit interviews at FAANG which have nothing to do with your job and which disregards the years of experience you’ve built up all in the name of interviewing efficiency. FAANG people don’t understand performance or latency anyway. they are focused on other things typically.
nurettin 4y ago
> They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Tell that to the hippie pinko commies. I love trading firms and their culture. What I don't like is IBM style artificial pushing of "company values" and the kind of dystopian "sensitivity training" right out of an orwell novel.

jensensbutton 4y ago

> It was the fact that I would not be allowed to share my work internally. I would not even be allowed to brainstorm with people doing the same job in other areas of the business. This is what Apple does as well. So not all FAANGs are equal here.

jedberg 4y ago
My understanding is that Apple will let you collaborate after what you're working on is public. They just don't want people accidentally sharing unreleased stuff with people who aren't cleared to know about it.
- jensensbutton 4y ago
  I've been told by folks who work on infra there that they need to file requests to even talk to the previous owners of code if that person has moved to a diff role. So I don't think it's just for unannounced products.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ablatt89 4y ago
  Once something is released, there's general access given for that particular software/hw but it still needs to be requested. In a weird way, it creates some internal excitement on "secret" releases but obviously makes development much more difficult.

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gadders 4y ago

Not sure how that typical that is. Maybe if you're interviewing at a hedge fund to work on their trading algorithms then it's possible. If you're doing general quant library or low latency stuff at an IB I wouldn't say this wouldn't happen but I'd say it's definitely not common.

jstx1 4y ago

> because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year Can you tell us more about this? What's their reason for it?

SpaghettiX 4y ago
Netflix would increase the salary of employees if they had higher offers. This idea is supported by Reed Hastings and IIRC was mentioned in https://www.norulesrules.com/ https://www.norulesrules.com/. To get a raise, you are encouraged to get a job offer with that salary to prove you're worth it.
jedberg 4y ago
Netflix separated pay and performance. Your performance was evaluated all year, and if you weren't a top performer, you were let go. In the spring we would do 360 reviews, where anyone could write a review of anyone else, to give candid feedback (although giving candid feedback was encouraged all year, but this gave you a formal outlet to do it). In the fall, your pay was evaluated (and kicked in at the new year). You were paid on the assumption that you were a top performer (otherwise you would have already been let go), so they would adjust you to "how much would we have to pay them to get them in the door today". They needed data for that calculation. One source of data was how much they had to offer new hires to get in the door. A second source was industry salary surveys. And a third source was your offer letters from other companies, if you chose to share them. If you get a huge offer elsewhere, they would maybe match it, or maybe tell you that you're better off going to that other offer. It also served another purpose. It gave you a chance to look at that other offer (assuming you could get one) and really thing about whether you still liked your job at Netflix enough to stay. They wanted people to be happy about continuing to work there, and were supportive of you leaving if you weren't happy, because they know you do your best work when you enjoy it. FWIW, my raises at Netflix were typically 20%+, and so were a lot of people, because they economy was on fire at the time.
- jstx1 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing! The focus on paying top compensation is very different from anywhere I've worked.

stagger87 4y ago

Just to clarify, you used the word "abuse" several times to describe a job where you would have to work in office between 8:30 to 5 and pull (I'm safely assuming) half a million dollars a year?

GlenTheEskimo 4y ago
Historically Netflix only had one level of engineer (this changed last year) with a starting salary of $400k, so I'm guessing it was substantially more than half a million.
TremendousJudge 4y ago
Not sure about GP, but money isn't everything. If I feel like I'm being treated badly, under stress, and lonely, no money can compensate that.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  This is me. There are lots of jobs that you literally could not pay me enough to do, because they'll make my life miserable. I'd rather be underpaid and enjoy working than make millions and hate life.
- m00x 4y ago
  It depends on what your original amount of money is. I'd rather work my ass off and be abused than be broke and afraid I can't provide for my family. I'd go from 30k to 100k regardless of work conditions, but not from 350k to 700k.
  - bloqs 4y ago
    Avoiding more bad is more heavily weighted than seeking more good in the brain generally but this heavily differs between people. For many, adding more bad is only offset by an rougly an order of magnitude more good.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I've not seen double, but I've seen a 50% increase, at assuredly a much lower comp level than Netflix, so, far higher marginal-utility for that income, and still wished I hadn't done it about 2 months in. Like, if you'd put a button in front of me and pressing it would undo it like it'd never happened, I'd have pressed it without hesitation. And they weren't even working me long hours or being outright mean to me or anything, the place and the work were just dreary as fuck and it was making me feel like shit even in my off hours. I had another job by month 4, and took a pay hit (though not all the way down to my prior level) to get out fast.

geph2021 4y ago

Basically, they were so worried about secrecy of their trading algorithms and people sharing them with other companies Which means if you took the job they probably would have had you sign some obscene non-complete/non-solicit/non-disparage/non-roll-your-eyes-at-them agreement. Despite the dubious enforceability of these, especially in some jurisdictions, you would still likely experience a lot of stress and expense (i.e. lawyer-up) if your departure rubbed someone the wrong way. Your exit from the trading world could involve: - demands to keep them informed of what you were doing - private investigators checking in on what you are doing - threatening legal letters - or actually being sued And that's if you did your very best to follow the non-compete agreement. If you were actually taking employment in a field remotely related to finance, you could have the DOJ/FBI knocking on your door to investigate trade-secrete theft. EDIT: And another point about "double the comp". The comp structured so that 75% is a discretionary annual bonus payout (with claw backs), and your base salary is 25%. So you could actually end up making less money, depending on the whims of the markets and/or internal politics.

madduci 4y ago

Maybe they can't find new talents because they are looking for cheap workforce?

mempko 4y ago

As someone who is a huge proponent of Free Software an an open culture and also who now runs a trading firm now, I completely agree with you. The industry is incredibly frustrating, especially to engineers and scientists. Because, by our very nature, we want to share our ideas and collaborate, because the best work is done together. There are no secrets internally at my company. Because I believe, in the long run, and open culture will win. But you aren't wrong about the industry in general. It's crazy frustrating.

mvuksano 4y ago

I worked in a high frequency trading company before. They had similar concerns about secrecy but I loved it. Even today I think it was the best job ever. Now I moved to the States and thinking of going back down the high frequency trading route again. I learned so much about computers - probably more then in any uni. By the way, work life balance was way better then in any FAANG company (I worked for two FAANG companies afterwards). Nobody ever expected me to be in before 930am and nobody ever expected me after 6pm.

jedberg 4y ago
> Now I moved to the States and thinking of going back down the high frequency trading route again.... Nobody ever expected me to be in before 930am and nobody ever expected me after 6pm. That's probably because you worked somewhere with decent employee protections, since it sounds like you worked outside of the USA.
- trzy 4y ago
  I also worked in the space, with Morgan Stanley’s options market making desk. It was all very sane. I’ve heard some of the prop shops and hedge funds can be crazy but not all are like that.
- elteto 4y ago
  You keep making these sort of statements on this thread while showing an obvious lack of knowledge about what is actually like working in the industry.
nvarsj 4y ago
I kind of agree with you. Having worked at HFT and now FAANG, I found HFT more satisfying and challenging overall - although it did have its issues, which is why I left. It's like a start up / small company culture with great compensation - you have a direct impact very easily and it's obvious when others aren't pulling their weight. The one I joined had 10 hours a day (8-6) in the contract, but no one worked more than 8 hours in the office and they actually had very flexible hours as long as you delivered. FAANG pays well but it is plagued with big company issues which can be very frustrating to talented engineers who just want to get stuff done.

papito 4y ago

I know people here have a lot of issues with the word "abuse", but that is true. I only had a few days in my life where I was productive in the office for that long. Just after three days in a row of 8:30AM to 6PM would burn me out and I would be sleep-deprived and useless for the rest of the week, so why am I forced to suffer? They are paying one lemon a year so I HAVE to be in the office? It's just amazingly stupid, but that's American school of management for you. I did crazy things when I was younger, and I would NOT subject myself to those now, so yeah - abuse.

jasmer 4y ago

That's not 'abuse' and it's a material concern they have. It also has something do with the 2x pay.

wyclif 4y ago

It's also a big problem that trading firms absolutely hate remote work because of their secrecy/security demands. I've been working remote for the past seven years. Sorry not sorry, but I'm never again going to work in a cube farm or an open office bullpen.

fxtentacle 4y ago

Fully agree. I've also seen my fair share of very restrictive no-remote work offers, but they didn't even offer exceptional pay in exchange. And those C++ automotive jobs in Germany? Sorry, I'm not even going to interview for 70k€ annually.

delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
> And those C++ automotive jobs in Germany? Sorry, I'm not even going to interview for 70k€ annually. I'd take that job in a heartbeat. Working on cars? Check. Nice European country? Check. Work-life balance? Double-check. What's not to like? Maybe it's because I'm looking for fresh graduate jobs, and 70000€ looks very attractive to me, even with a 35% tax.
- fooker 4y ago
  > Nice European country? The grass is always greener on the other side. :) If you don’t like the idea of living in San Francisco or Chicago, you’ll hate it at most of the large European cities. Small towns are a different manner.
  - dodyg 4y ago
    In large European cities you don't have to worry about getting shot
  - drblastoff 4y ago
    Cities are not all alike. I enjoy living in my current city, but would never move back to San Francisco.
  - delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
    I'm not American. I think almost all European cities are a lot smaller and a lot less dense than Singapore is. And they have equivalent public transport, amenities, etc. Make no mistakes, I don't have any illusions about cultural differences and am perfectly aware of grass-greener-on-other-side syndrome. I just don't want to be stuck in a 700 km^2 island all my life.

impossiblefork 4y ago

>Basically, they were so worried about secrecy of their trading algorithms and people sharing them with other companies, they didn't even let people share internally for fear that one person would learn too much about their business. That's probably actually required though. There's a book called 73 Rules of Spycraft by Allens Dulles and these are obviously relevant for financial trading: Rule 2, 3 and 4, are I think, the relevant ones in this case. Especially 4: >No matter how brilliant a given individual, no matter how great his goodwill, if he is lacking in security, he will eventually prove more of a liability than asset.

snordgren 4y ago
These firms are in the business of finding and exploiting opportunities in the markets, before too many people know about them and the opportunity disappears. One person who knows too much could be an existential threat to the firm.
- impossiblefork 4y ago
  Some of them are, others build models that they develop over a long time.

tomtom1818 4y ago

I feel like some people responding to you have been nowhere close to a finance role. First, those 8-5 hrs are only stated by your contract. Everybody on HN complains that "unlimited" PTO obviously does not mean "unlimited". Same as your "strictly " 8-5 working hours. There is a high level of peer pressure to get things done immediately. Working in a mid office role, I frequently had front office at moment's notice ask to implement complex deals while trying to understand their vague descriptions of said deal. Now I have to spend an hour with them to parse out what they want. Good luck trying to have a mutual conversation with the front office in a high stress situation. I had to once implement a completely new computational feature to the code base in two days just to accommodate a single deal. And don't dare think that you can get into flow... So not only can some of these deals have long compute times, but then you have front office analysts pinging you every hour to see "how are things shaping up" and if you have something ready. Not only do you have your own tasks set by your direct manager, but you have several analysts on your ass that could drop a complaint at any second. In the end, you have multiple bosses. If they are unhappy with how fast you are delivering, you can bet your direct report will one day hear about it. There goes your performance review and year end bonus. Now not only do I have multiple people at work on my ass, my family is pissed that Dad has to work late this evening because he was given something to work on that needs to be delivered asap. Don't get me started on the snark by the back office. Not only can get shit on by front office, but the level of unhelpfulness by the back office made shit roll down from all sides. You did the right thing for you and your family.

sharperguy 4y ago

I wouldn't really call it abuse, as long as all those expectations are clear up front. If they cannot function without those expectations being met by their developers, and are willing to pay a significantly higher salary to compensate for the inconvinence in comparison to other jobs, it just is what it is.

xwolfi 4y ago

It's a bit melodramatic.I work on a trading floor in Hong Kong from 9 to 7 which is less than most colleagues and allows me to take my kid to school in the morning and see her plenty in the evening (my dad had a small store and he'd do 8 to 8... 8:30 to 5 is really not normal neither in France or Hong Kong where I worked). I can remote work, or remote connect to solve a hard problem, there's ofc a way to change these. As for sharing code internally, yeah, I fight for it and I get it (I m a Java dev and we need to reverse a lot of old C++ that the OGs gatekeep, takes lots of escalation to breach the "need to know" BS). I think you can largely lower your salary to get a more junior position with no stress: I was a team lead working 6 to 11 in a startup jungling with timezone between mexico and Indonesia, and I joined the investment bank as a junior idiot for a cool 20% increase. And I refuse promotion, why do you think you d be forced to take the money and the pressure ?

easytiger 4y ago

> There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. With all due respect you don't know what you are talking about. This doesn't represent my 15+ year experience in that domain. > But I would have had to work in their office in Manhattan, be in by 8:30am every day and not leave until after 5 at a miniumum. Must have been a back office job because that's not early enough for trading hours.

boppo1 4y ago
Tell me more about your experience, please. I've been learning C++ with an interest in the field.

andirk 4y ago

This is one of the best threads yet! - Guy says he turned down a bunch of money for work/life balance reasons - Nah - Guy has to respond to dozens of nay-sayers telling them he was perfectly happy with his current dump truck of money thank you very much

elteto 4y ago
That is _not_ what he said at all, and many others have said as much. He said he was going to be _abused_. Really? Abused? Only someone with an extreme level of privilege and disconnect could use that word in that context. And he complaints about abuse while working for... AMAZON. Seriously? The irony is palpable here. I have yet to hear the stories about Citadel firing workers because they took a bathroom break.

optimiz3 4y ago

Also, making 1M in NYC is like making 500k in Redmond due to no city and state income taxes.

elteto 4y ago

Them: “$500k to $1M cash compensation, you have to maintain some opsec and be in the office during regular working hours.” You: “This is OUTRAGEOUS! Hard pass.” We sw devs can be a spoiled bunch sometimes.

valdiorn 4y ago
Parent poster explained this very poorly, but it's not as simple as "office hours are x to y". You are responsible for a trading system that's turning over hundreds of millions a day. If you're not in the office by 8am or whatever, that's not a "hey you were a bit late this morning" - it's a major "wake up the CEO the engineer on call is not present and we're not trading"! It's BAD. your train ran late? Doesn't matter, you're responsible. Your boiler exploded? Leave your house flooded, work comes first. It's EXTREME pressure all around. I've done overnight support for a fairly infamous quant fund and I'm still on medication 5 years later because of the anxiety disorder I developed whilst working there. To this date the Blackberry ringtone triggers a PTSD response and I get physically sick if I hear it.
- elteto 4y ago
  I'm sorry to hear about your experience, that sounds rough. I do know that support roles in the finance industry hit _hard_ and the difference between one person's work environment can be the complete opposite of someone else in the same position in a different company, or even in the same company but a different team. I spoke with someone recently who is in sales for a large finance behemoth we've all heard about and even that person was like "Goldman is the worst, I'd never go there." But, most developers in quant roles, or close to quant roles (trading infrastructure, research support, etc) do not experience anything like this. On call is rare for these positions and they have regular work schedules with normal hours. Plus the compensation is multiples of what someone in an overnight support role will get paid. You probably know all this.
  - valdiorn 4y ago
    I'm a developer in a quant role, and basically every job I've looked at in this market has similar requirements. See my other comment in this thread about the absurd support burden at XTX markets. I was at Man AHL for 5 years after leaving GR and that is a pretty laid back company in comparison. I was not on a trade critical team per se, but some of our system were used for pre-flight checks. As such, if there was an issue the on call person got called at 5 am to sort it out. If not resolved within an hour or so, the cio/cro got called and had to decide whether to trade regardless or not. Thankfully not a common issue but definitely at least a call or two every time you did support.

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DrBazza 4y ago

You didn't take a job because it's 8.30 to 5 and because of some undefined 'abuse'? That's what you've written? Maybe it really isn't for you. On the other hand I've worked in this industry for 30 years, and done those hours, and longer, for 30 years, and enjoyed more or less every minute of it. I've flown all over the world, and been to various events and conferences that I would not have had a chance to do in another career. I'm not clear what 'abuse' you think you're going to get. We are in a fortunate position in life actually, that we're developers that can change jobs on a whim and there's a large marketplace for our skills. My advice to you is that you should actually have taken the role, gained some experience of a different industry (the first 6 months will be low responsibility), and if it's not for you, leave. > It was the fact that I would not be allowed to share my work internally I've only heard of one company that's as mad as that and they start with 'G'.

valdiorn 4y ago
I worked for the G company I'm assuming you're referring to :) I left because of the insane paranoid culture. I do however share the same sentiment as the parent poster - I interviewed for XTX for a c++ role when I quit and during one of the interviews I asked about on-call rota and out of hours work. The answer I got: "oh, it's not too bad. We have a weekly rota, you can expect to get called maybe 3 or 4 times... a night". I noped the fuck out of that. Others like Citadel and Jump were similar stories. Many have made offers but a combination of insane out of hours requirements and non compete clauses means I've told them all to shove it, and took an "underpaying" role to achieve some kind of balance in my life.
- jleahy 4y ago
  That was 6 years ago and it was indeed tough back then, we were rewriting a huge trading system from Java -> C++ while trying to keep our edge. However, we succeeded and things have changed considerably since. We also have a dev working in Singapore now which makes support significantly better. We were at least honest in the interview process regarding hours, there are companies where you would only find that out after starting. There were people who were willing to go through that pain and I think they would agree they were well rewarded but I understand some people want different things from their careers.

pyuser583 4y ago

How secure was the job? Netflix has a reputation for firing quickly.

Olumde 4y ago

You forget the abuse. In most jobs software engineers are the revenue generators. In the trading industry software engineers are just something that stands between the traders and their bonus. And the traders can get really rude.

quicknir 4y ago

It's a pretty drastic assertion (and quite HN worthy) that a whole industry is abusing their developers, based on not even one job, but your impression of a job based on an interview. And assertions like "they expected us never to see our family", because you couldn't take your laptop home? Maybe if you had taken that job, you would have left the office at 5 pm, 95% of the time. Maybe not, of course, but you don't actually know. I've been working in HFT for nearly ten years, in multiple different roles. I've met well over a hundred developers in the business, have at least a dozen I'd call friends, who are spread over nearly as many companies at this point in time. Most folks have had overwhelmingly positive experiences in the industry. Like anything there are exceptions, but I've seen no evidence of a systemic problem in the field. I know a few people who left my firm to go to Facebook and found it more stressful there, for instance. Certainly, I've worked with very very experienced ex-gamedevs, who would say unequivocally that developer abuse is a far bigger systemic issue in game dev than in finance. Obviously it's fine to post your take but it should be tempered by the relative amount of experience you have.

b20000 4y ago

i have no problem with any of the above. when i interviewed for netflix i had to study their ridiculous culture document and found out it was a cult. i heard terrible stories of people being insulted openly. and you have to deal with endless leetcode bullshit interviews at FAANG which have nothing to do with your job and which disregards the years of experience you’ve built up all in the name of interviewing efficiency. FAANG people don’t understand performance or latency anyway. they are focused on other things typically.

nurettin 4y ago

> They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Tell that to the hippie pinko commies. I love trading firms and their culture. What I don't like is IBM style artificial pushing of "company values" and the kind of dystopian "sensitivity training" right out of an orwell novel.