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It seems reasonable that the people optimizing code and writing the most efficient infrastructure are not the same folks who actually write trading algorithms. Now, supposedly a big part of trading firm's success is that its algorithms are faster than the competition's. So are the low-level infrastructure people paid as well as the algorithm folks?

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No is the basic answer. Low-level optimization while a valuable skill is more of a commodity, algorithm development tends to require a combination of skills in maths, finance, programming and creativity which is a much rarer combination.

Saying that people who are good at low-level optimizations are still pretty well paid.

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