Ask HN: After 3 years of crypto trading, how to return to the normal job market? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: After 3 years of crypto trading, how to return to the normal job market?

7 pointsMichaelBaer39 comments

Hello guys,

It has been a crazy ride. I'm basically an (crypto) algo trader. This was kind of a dream. Made it true. Worked well. Did it on my own.

Now would like to have a "normal" job again. Maybe in Data Science or Robotics (although no exprience, but this would be very exciting). Anyway.

What do you think. Should I mention that I was basically unemployed the last 3 years and did crypto trading?

I think from the technical part, it was very challeging. Also I was able to beat the competition for quite a long time.

On the other hand, I can't prove anything I say and there is no reference that proves that I actually was that good.

How would you handle this? I mean it is kind of weird to be honest.

View on HN

There's a paradox that if you're telling the truth in the interview, there should be no reason for someone to feel the need to question it. The story will hang together, nothing will stick out as odd, and you can get on with talking about the tech you used, the skills you have, and the fit for the new position.

If someone needs "proof" of something that you know is true, you don't need to work for them and it's likely some kind of "dance for my entertainment" rather than a genuine "I'll hire MB, but only if he can prove this one thing with paperwork."

Sometimes people won't believe you, even with the facts in front of them, because their world is too small for them to conceive that what you did is possible. You don't want to work with those people, but they exist.

I had a fairly senior hiring manager for an investment bank call me a liar to my face, basically because he couldn't understand how a consultant can have more than one client at once, and so my CV is non-linear! I dodged a bullet there.

I had a similar experience, 20 years ago. I was one of the first publishers to be accepted into Google AdSense in my country. I run a forum and had my blog on the same domain.

Initially Google used to send US cheques, in USD. So I had to go to the bank to deposit those in my personal account, which required a branch manager to sign it because 1. Who is Google and 2. Why is someone getting a large-ish cheque from a company overseas (AML laws).

Anyway, at some point I've decided to incorporate a company. Trying to explain to my accountant what my company was doing (online publishing), and trying to explain to the bank this was not a money laundering operation required some effort.

People had no idea that one could make money on the Internet.

Advertising for them had to fit in a TV, billboard, radio or cinema square. Anything else was science fiction.

I then left my 17-year full-time as a mainframe developer (yep) to run my company full-time. You can't imagine the run around I had when I tried to find a home loan for our first home a year later - how do you make money? was always the question. It didn't matter that my answer was "I am the owner/director of a company". They wanted to know what my company was doing and just "online publishing" wasn't enough. Even with tax records and everything.

So I empathise with the OP on how to demonstrate skills and experience while being self-employed.

Oh yes, the whole "but you don't have a regular salary and spend it all every month" thing was a problem getting a mortgage for me also. Even though I got a pretty darn good consulting rate in banking and paid the whole mortgage off in very few years in the end... No one could officially understand "I only take out money when I need to" but happily I had a sensible branch manager in the building society that I used...

> I was basically unemployed

Did you get money to live from cryptocoins trading? Then you were "self employed", not "unemployed".

Indeed.

Exactly self employed is rather the right term. Although on paper I was unemployed. It is kind of like private wealth management. You could argue that someone just lives from his portfolio. Although in my case it was an active battle ; )

You can totally say self employed. Especially if you were filing taxes with positive income after expenses, you weren’t unemployed.

What was the technical work you did? Was most of your time spent on market research, coding, blockchain, or designing/implementing algorithms?

I would pick one or more job titles that are both relevant to the job you're applying for and to the work you did and put those on your resume, e.g.

Crypto trader/blockchain developer/investment analyst (self-employed)

- Developed trading platform with X latency

- Implemented blah blah algorithm

- (Throw in more metrics about how you were able to beat competition)

The proof is the skills you built along the way, the same as any job you put on your resume. In data science, at least, we're rarely asked for references. Don't think of yourself as unemployed during that time, and especially don't call yourself unemployed.

Thanks a lot, that helps. To be honst made a lot of stuff.

- real time trading system on orderbook level

- market research and visualisation

- timeseries modelling with different algorithms

- research different approaches, like reinforcement learning for trading

- database design and optimization. Currently the database has 42 billion entries

- web3 coding with solidity

- software architecture

- logging, don't lough. Huge part. Very hard to implement.

How did I beat the competition:

- was quicker than any one else.

- Also guess had more clever strategies, but it is hard to get into the details.

A lot of that is relevant to machine learning engineer jobs, especially time series modeling, reinforcement leaning, databases, and real time systems, so highlight those areas if you apply to ML eng jobs.

The more detailed you can be, the more "real" your job experience will look. For example, list the time series algorithms you used and quantity how they helped (error metrics, % return, comparison to a naive forecast, etc). I already mentioned latency. Optimizing your code and data for speed is something interesting you could get into too.

> Should I mention that I was basically unemployed the last 3 years and did crypto trading?

I wouldn't frame it that way. If you made enough money to cover your rent and living expenses, and weren't collecting unemployment from your local government, then you weren't unemployed. You had a non-traditonal, remote/work from home job, that others would be envious of. Just because there's no office, no boss, no timecard doesn't mean you were unemployed. I'm betting you spent many many hours in front of a computer to get your Algo edge in order to make money. That's called a job.

> On the other hand, I can't prove anything I say and there is no reference that proves that I actually was that good.

It's on the block chain. Make a transaction and sign it with the hash of "I'm Michael Baer and <secret salt>" so if anyone doubts your story, you can tell them what the secret salt is so they can follow the transactions on the chain itself if they don't believe you're the owner of the wallet you say you are.

The beauty of companies that use leetcode as their hiring bar is that a smart person who didn't get an ivy league degree and doesn't have traditional experience they can put on their resume means that you can still walk in the front door, ace the test, and get a job.

On your resume, dig into what you did as an Algo trader. What code you had to write, what data analysis you did in order to get that edge, etc.

Do you have trading records good enough for your tax authorities? Those might suffice.

I think that the desks that I worked with in the City (derivatives, credit, high speed trading), though a while ago now, would be interested in your experiences for trading many things. They'd probably have to interview you hard!

(I've only been on someone else's payroll for a short time, maybe 5% of my working life, so that is not a problem if you showcase it right, IMHO.)

Exactly, guess I would be able to land a job as an algo trader. Maybe would even be able to create my own shop.

But the thing is, I just would like to do something else. Trading is not that exciting anymore. It was a tough battle for the last years, resulting in incremental improvemts to speed, strategy and infrastructure. Now kind of ready for something new. Also would love to learn something new as well.

Sure could provide my tax statements, as a proof. Just think it is weird to do so. Also the numbers are kind of high - so would rather let it be private.

If they're that high why are you looking for a job?

I could have $20M in the bank and there's a very high chance that I'd go apply for a SWE-3 level position somewhere in retirement.

In this context "kind of high" might be only a couple of million in profits. Enough to not want people to know, but not enough to retire on.

Couple million is enough to retire. I don't know why people on the internet always think you need so much money to retire.

I have semi-retired without needing anything like that! It helps not to have expensive hobbies nor own a flash car...

A couple million of profits from trading doesn't translate to a couple of million in your retirement account, with all taxes paid.

After taxes and after paying for living expenses for MB and family for the last 3 years, $2M could easily be around half-a-million. Depending on where they live, that might be more like a downpayment on a house rather than a funded retirement.

First of all, taxes will be what, a quarter or a third of it. So ok, north of 1M, still enough to retire. Second of all, if you bring in more than a million and spend most of it, down to 500k, in 3 years, then that's on you..

If most of those hit in one year and as short term gains (which algo trading will be), taxes in my state would be around 12% and federally would be around 35%. You're down to just over a million. Paying yourself a salary means 15.3% on whatever your salary is for FICA/Medicare. For a $130K salary for each of 3 years, that's another $60K, taking you to right at a million before you've spent a dime on anything except taxes. Your first box of ramen makes you not a millionaire.

> $130K salary for each of 3 years

We have totally different ideas about this, lol..

You're going to have to comply with the "reasonable and appropriate" standard. What's "reasonable and appropriate" for an engineer/trader who, through his sole efforts, built a system which produced $2M in profits? It's going to be hard to argue that it's much less than the figure I proposed, but feel free to.

No you misunderstand, I have no idea what you're talking about. If I bring in 2 million I think worst case for me is I declare it all income in which case I have just north of 1 million after tax. Then I keep investing that so it's not sitting cash obviously so then I retire on the returns which is bare minimum of 40k per year if all I could find to invest my million in was a measly 4% per year for some reason. I don't think I'm missing anything and I think it's pretty silly that people think you need more money than that to retire. Inevitably I'm going to get interested in working in some kind of job after a while so then I will have a real income on top of it. In summary there is zero percent chance that I could not retire having brought in one million after tax. Perhaps the main impedance mismatch here is you are talking with an extremely frugal midwesterner..

Exactly. Guess it doesn't matter how much money you have in the bank account. SWE-3 level position can be fun, so why not.

Because it is boring. I'm not ready to retirement. It doesn't make sense. Maybe start my own start up would be something interesting. But right now love to gain some more skills, see what cool stuff I can learn and get rid of responsibility.

Ok, in that case I would strongly advise against advertising your net worth with your prospective new employer because they probably aren't going to hire you if they are aware of the fact that you are doing it just so you're not bored. Try to be as normal as possible if you want to get hired. What you could do is find a way to show your capabilities without directly revealing your net worth, even though I don't know what that would be. Another option is to turn some of your money into a small investment fund and to manage that. It's anything but boring.

I don't know who would pay for data sciencing at the level that you probably want outside finance except possibly some of the AI outfits in a hurry, maybe even relatively new ones but flush with cash...

Actually this is the point. I'm not that after money anymore. Would love to learn something new again. So would be happy to get far far less, but learn for example robotics. Really excited about it.

For sure if money would be the only metric, I should try to stick to trading. Even if my stuff doesn't work, I could try to join some prop trading shop. Could imagine doing so to be honest, but right now just want to try something new.

Well, I think there is lots of interesing DS stuff to be done. I've had very good value out of a couple of DS folks who worked for me. And on the side while doing my PhD I'm trying to absorb some DS skills because they will be useful, and intresting on the way!

Consider doing a DS-flavoured degree, eg at Master's level, part-time? Maybe do something more mundane part time to pay for it?

"On the other hand, I can't prove anything I say and there is no reference that proves that I actually was that good."

What the actual fuck is a blockchain for if you can't prove anything with it??

Lol, kind of true. Even banks try to avoid clients with net worth from crypto, although it is extremly transparent. Yes you can kind of prove it, but it is not trivial if you have thousands of transactions.

Let's say it depends highly who you are talking to. If it is someone who has never done prop trading, it would be difficult to convince him about anything. It is very easy to dismiss any gains from crypto as pure luck.

You could look for a job in quant trading outside of crypto.

Or even within crypto, there's still plenty of big reputable firms doing it.

As for track... half the interview will revolve around technical questions and knowledge of the markets - which sounds like you have. As for track - how did you trade? On chain? You could provide wallet address. On CEX? You could make screenshots or sth. But frankly Id think evidence won't be the stumbling block.

Having done it self employed will only make it more impressive.

Totally agree. For a trading job I guess I could provide the evidence. Especially if the job is inside crypto. The point is just. Maybe it is crazy to walk away. I'm somehow more interested in learning something outside that area.

Like a job at faang, would be exciting (pretty sure very hard to get into it with my profile). The goal would be anyway to learn as much as possible.

PS: Even thought about applying to internships, for jobs that are a bit outside of my skill set. But guess that is a bit weird as well

I'm guessing since you're saying is you didn't run it as a legit business. You do know you probably owe capital gains tax if you've made money on your investments?

Having a business is a legal way to reduce your tax bill.

Sure! Thanks for the hint. I did it 100% transparent to the tax authoreties.

I can't quite tell if you need a job :) if yes, quant trading is certainly an option. If you want to do something else for any reason, I can't see how this will be very different. A SE job interview will revolve around technical questions. Startups will probably focus more on skills and less on past job titles.

And if you don't need one... sounds like you first have to figure out what you want to do :)

Good luck!

Thanks a lot for the warm word. Guess everyone needs a job, can't imagine living a life just traveling around. My brain needs to work. I'm already watching youtube lectures about theoretical physics out of boredom. To be honest robotics very excited about it, but this stuff is rare.

Agree it is just a normal application process in the end, had the feeling that my journey as a trader would be disadvantageous, but it seems to be okay according to the comments! So thanks again.

Sounds like you spent a lot of time sitting at a table before displays. I’m not sure doing more of that for another 40 hours a week would be good for your brain or health.

Hence I want to suggest you launch a solo small scale software consultancy, or together with a friend or two, just to keep some coin inflow. It’s hard but not entirely impossible. Don’t lose SWE skills, keep up with the new tech. Solve small problems for moderate coin and maybe fun, maybe help some friends with their IT problems, learn at your own pace.

And in your free time go seriously touch some real grass. Learn how to bake good bread, brew beer, gardening, how to play a music instrument, perfumery, woodworking, whatever physical, concrete. If you have a restless curious brain, it might find the amount of nuance in guitar building (or guitar pedal building) quite fascinating.

In other words, get real physical. When, after some time of learning and struggles, you hold in your hands something that’s awesome and that was made by you, it feels goddamn amazing. And with a fat account balance and freedom to do what you want it feels even better.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com