In such a scenario, is the 99th percentile of quant compensation significantly higher than the 99th percentile of tech company compensation (FANG etc)?
I've always considered this a fork in the road for many---finance versus say advertising--and I'm curious how others with more experience would describe the pros and cons of each.
HFT shops do indeed pay more. Perhaps at the top percentiles they're similar but at the median, HFT probably pays double, and it's cash, not RSUs that vest over many years. The downside: culture of always in the office (not sure how covid will affect this), software that is insanely specialized and uninspiring, and generally awful work/life balance. I'm sure some shops are different, but they expect you to put in a lot of time to earn that salary. Compared with FAANG where the burn-out is at little more prolonged (and of course the morally dubious business that is ad-tech).
I've learned to stay away from both and have never looked back. But I think working a FAANG or HFT is a good thing for any dev to at least look into while they're young and ambitious and can "afford" a bit of burnout to see what life can really be like (or not).
This is the big question for all of Wall Street right now. So far it’s not been too bad but there are gaps here and there.
Prop shops seem to have a pretty strong understanding of ROI in all things, including time spent, so if your killer strategy just doesn't have a ton to act on today go take an hour lunch and head home or wherever. The place I was at was known as an "arcade" or a bunch of unrelated strategies from various teams that happened to work out, so maybe it's different other places, but I can say for certain that I've done 90 minute lunches off site with senior traders in the middle of the trading day just because the volume in their primary product(s) was mostly just interns throwing 1 lots at one another.
Because I can work in a very chill environment and earn 200k-250k + stock. I can also work 60 hour weeks for 300k + bonus.
I used to work in London on roughly $180k putting in about 20 hours per week.
Is there anything in particular you did to switch? Any specific tech skills you picked up? Or did you just apply and do normal interviews?
I've mostly stayed in ads because I'm really good at JavaScript, and a huge chunk of ad optimization/tracking is on the frontend.
The best thing for getting hired, unfortunately, was my degree (math+finance @ Oxford). Recruiters chased me! I don’t care about the degree, but they do - not necessarily people who interview you, but HR/recruitment department, they use your pedigree to float your CV to the top of the pile
Also interviewing is huge hit and miss. I got rejected by like 5 companies in a row (often initial rounds), then got 2 offers at once (and one of the companies said I was one of the strongest candidates ever).
You explicitly go to Google, Facebook, some website. No one is pushing ads to you PC without you making a request to.
I mostly dislike ads and adtech, because their value is overstated. However... You aren't entitled to stuff that people publish. Thus placing an ad blocker when visiting my site, you're being an asshole.
Would you pay Google $500 per year for all of their services? Then $200 to Facebook. Then your local news portal another couple of hundred.
Would you be willing to share the name of your firm, and more generally your experiences, here or in a unicast channel?
Avoid both and Choose to make a difference in people’s lives.
The best he can do is not actively make anyone else’s life worse, so go with finance, and adopt a shelter animal.
Based on what? Anecdotal, but my partner is a data scientist and statistician full-time . She regularly volunteers or contracts her skillset to a range of projects, including medical research and criminal justice. It's very impactful work - some of the research will massively improve people's lives. And there is definitely enough work to mostly focus on those projects if someone wants to.