Wow - TIL. Thanks.
I've been out of the HFT business for a while, so i guess things have moved on.
331 karma · joined October 26, 2020
I've been out of the HFT business for a while, so i guess things have moved on.
I remember this was being seriously considered by one of our target exchanges (can't remember if it was Eurex or Globex).
Our main HFT trader didn't seem worried - he said that the race would just change from a race to pick off an opportunity into a race to align with any auction timeframe.
Back then, our strategies were implemented in FGPA so our response to events could be timed very accurately. Even randomly-timed rolling auctions wouldn't have posed any challenges.
Probably explains why this idea never ended up being implemented by any of the major exchanges.
I've been using Linux since the late 1990's (SuSE 5.x) and using Debian as my sole OS for the last 15+ years.
I took the plunge and bought a MacBook Pro M1 about 6 months ago.
What I miss about Linux:
- the choice of different desktops (warts and all!)
- zero friction software development (all the open source tools just work)
- privacy and open source
- as you'd expect, the OS and hardware are really integrated (suspend/resume butter smooth and faster than my Debian/Thinkpad experience)
- integration with my iPhone (sharing passwords, iMessaging on my laptop)
Edit: formatting
Twice in my career, I've found myself in senior management roles (CTO in an EMEA organisation, and Software Eng Manager in a medium sized tech company).
In both cases, it's fair to say I wasn't having fun in those roles. I stayed in each for 4-5 years. And in both cases, I left the role to return to a pure coding role (I went freelancing, and eventually ended up as an employee in a company in both cases).
The adjustment was tough. Luckily, I'd been coding in my spare time, so the tech transition wasn't too hard.
But finding myself suddenly in a position of almost zero influence was tough.
I suddenly wasn't setting the agenda. I also found myself disagreeing with my supervisors' decisions but I had to temper my replies (I knew I had more management experience than some of them, but I needed to stay in my box, to a large extent).
In some aspects, it's an ego problem. As a senior manager, you're invariably in a highly visible role, and that brings a certain level of ego boosting.
Also, in my case, there was the various visible attributes that comes with a senior role - company car, personal assistant, international travel, visibility up the org tree, etc.
Luckily, I ended up in a financial trading company so my compenation now is probably where it would be if I had stayed on a management track in other companies.
Do I regret my decisions? At this stage, no (my most recent "reversion" was nearly 7 years ago). I'm happy writing code and not being involved in the politics and BS of management.
But there are times I also miss some aspects of management.
In terms of it being a long-term career choice? I feel it's easier to find roles as a freelance developer than as a freelance manager (or management consultant).
You can subscribe online but in order to cancel, you need to chat to a human.
It took several attempts by me to tell them I don’t want to change my subscription plan to a cheaper one - I wanted to cancel.
It’s a really bad process for a magazine that considers itself a reputable news source.
Won’t be signing up again.
If I’m doing a lot of script editing (and maybe even Python), I use vi/vim.
If I’m writing C/C++, I use VS Code. Just add an extension and it works out if the box.
Previously, I used Eclipse for Java and Visual Studio for C# on Windows.
Sure, emacs could probably do all of the above, but anytime I try it, I give up. But anytime I see work colleagues using it, I look on in wonder and amazement, and a small bit of jealousy.
However, we moved away from “pure C#” about 10 years ago, to use FPGAs, especially in the ultra low latency stuff.
A lot of strategies can still be profitable with C#, colo’ed servers and kernel bypass NICs.