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Comment by slavetologic | Hacker News Reader

Most tech talent isn't worth anything. A few are worth an insane amount. Companies can't tell which are which until they're in the door. The laid off workers are in the mediocre and lower bucket. This is a viewpoint I've been told by HR at multiple top quant funds

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LOL, just no. SOP for poorly run companies is to lay off the most expensive employees, regardless of how much value they bring to the table. That principal engineer making $250K? “Why are we paying him twice as much as 2 juniors?”

I’ve seen that happen way more often than companies laying off actual lower-value employees.

250k is entry level for the type of firm I'm talking about

Yes, I’m familiar with fintech. Also, with its tendency to see staff as fungible when optimizing for costs. After all, all those eng types are the same, right?

They’re not talking about fintech.. Quant shops write algorithms to trade the stock market and the salaries are more akin to Wall St. Very different than a company like Robinhood

Quant jobs shouldn't even be considered tech jobs. They are more like mathematicians, with a side of wizard.

Useless in any discussion about the tech industry as they are an extreme outlier

> SOP for poorly run companies is to lay off the most expensive employees

This is assuming companies are being "poorly run" as opposed to being pushed out of market by monopolistic (or duo, etc) practices and economies of scale. The largest companies have been acting predatory (like 90s MSFT) for some time now.

In tech, I have seen a reliable pattern. Most of the contractors go first, then the highly paid middle management, then the highly compensated tech talent.

Back when I was contracting the pattern was to fire their own staff first, particularly those with domain knowledge. Then they would offer the contractors full time jobs at half their contract rates. I didn't do many contracts where I wasn't offered a job by the end of the contract.

The ones firing their most senior FTEs first are certainly the poorly run ones.

> The laid off workers are in the mediocre and lower bucket.

Disagree. I've seen some extremely talented people RIF'd. When it comes down to dollars and cents, the company is keeping the people who it thinks can still get the basics done and aren't in the upper cost brackets. Often the most talented folks, the ones the company paid an arm and a leg to recruit and retain, are the first to go.

Of course they are going to say that. These are folks that will literally say anything if it means they get to keep more money. And what better way to keep money than to shit on tech workers edging in on their fat salaries?

But quant funds are really a winner-takes-all situation, so it's a bit like saying 'The top tennis players are worth millions, everyone else, not so much'.

In most other businesses, the reward for being 0.1% better is far less pronounced, maybe even just 0.1%.

Top quant funds have always said elitist things.

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