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Those rents are insane. I run a HFT firm in the suburbs of Denver, and we have a beautiful office on a golf course for $20/square foot. For a 10 person firm u
by HockeyPlayer 12y ago
Those rents are insane. I run a HFT firm in the suburbs of Denver, and we have a beautiful office on a golf course for $20/square foot. For a 10 person firm using 4,000 square feet, that is an extra $20k per month, which could hire you 2 extra people. Wow!
- ritchiea 12y agoYour cost per employee at an HFT firm is $10k per month? Sounds like not much of a salary & benefits for the employee, especially given the industry.
- cynicalkane 12y agoDepends on the trading strategy. There's a surprising number of trading shops that do niche strategies that don't make much money but have zero competition. The trading development cost is correspondingly low.
- hawkice 12y agoI think the math here is: 4000 square feet for 10 people -> 400 square feet per person. $20/sq ft. -> $8000 -> $20k hires 2.5 people worth of office space. He describes it as a lavish expense, and obviously 400 square feet per person is more than I've ever seen at a normal tech company. All in all I'd wager this guy is paying above-market for engineering talent, as most in the finance space do.
- HockeyPlayer 12y agoYou are correct on all counts. a) we have more than 10 people in our 4,000 square feet. b) we have lots of extra space. c) we pay well, most people make more than $10k/month.
- HockeyPlayer 12y agoIn addition to some superb coders, mathematicians and traders, we have several fairly low skill positions.
- goldmouth 12y agoHigh frequency trading in Denver? How do you execute in the required nano seconds with no dedicated cable?
- loumf 12y agoOnly the servers need to be co-located.
- HockeyPlayer 12y agoloumf is correct, even if our offices were in Chicago, we'd still be colocating the trading servers at the exchanges.