What a waste of talent.
What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition
51–60 of 219 posts
Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition
#52For those who don't know, Jane Street is one of the best performing algorithmic trading firms on Wall Street. Probably the largest Ocaml shop on earth. It's a lucrative job for strong programming talent. Engineers there routinely make well over $1mm/year (edit: after a few years). They are similar to Two Sigma in tech focus and talent, which is a more well-known firm.
"Routinely" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I can confirm it's possible, as I've been in the industry and have spoken to people who make seven figures at Jane Street. But I would rather say it's "reasonably attainable" for an engineer who has been there for at least five - seven years and is really hitting their stride with the type of work. They do routinely beat out top tech compensation, and most engineers there…
Imagine writing a long ass comment quibbling over getting paid tons of money.
Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Routinely" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I can confirm it's possible, as I've been in the industry and have spoken to people who make seven figures at Jane Street. But I would rather say it's "reasonably attainable" for an engineer who has been there for at least five - seven years and is really hitting their stride with the type of work. They do routinely beat out top tech compensation, and most engineers there…
This comment really did not help my depression as someone that makes $150k two years into a FAANG job. I've never even been able to get interviews from HRT or Jane Street, and my Citadel offer was less than $200k...
Are you "depressed" that you are on the 99th percentile of world income? You make more in 2 years than my grandfather made all his life, in over 50 years of hard hard work. Or alternatively, you also make about as much in a month as I do in a year, at a very competitive PhD program.
Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
The OCaml website lists some companies it [0], I think there are a bunch of new blockchain startups that are also using OCaml but are not on that page. [0] https://ocaml.org/learn/companies.html
Is there something about purely functional languages that make them attractive to blockchain applications? I remember a post on here a little while ago complaining about Haskell adoption in industry was being mostly led by cryptocurrencies.
One person might say that the common factor is not being frightened of doing something challenging and unconventional that allows you to achieve extraordinary things.
Another might say it was a weakness for snake oil.
Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment really did not help my depression as someone that makes $150k two years into a FAANG job. I've never even been able to get interviews from HRT or Jane Street, and my Citadel offer was less than $200k...
Are you "depressed" that you are on the 99th percentile of world income? You make more in 2 years than my grandfather made all his life, in over 50 years of hard hard work. Or alternatively, you also make about as much in a month as I do in a year, at a very competitive PhD program.
World income is irrelevant since I live in a nice part of America, not the world. And yeah, I do make about as much as your and my grandfather made over the course of their careers. Unfortunately, if I'm making an apples-to-apples comparison with people doing equivalent work (perhaps not at Jane Street, but definitely at Google or Facebook) I'm making about 80% or less. That means I'm worth 80% in the eyes of the fair labor market - I'm 20% less human.
Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Comparison is the thief of joy. You are more than your work, and I would say you'll always be unhappy if you define your identity or your success by how much money you earn. Someone around you will always earn more than you, or have some other successful characteristic that you do not. That being said: while it's not perfectly meritocratic, I would say tech and (this side of) finance is uniquely attainable for someon…
> or have some other successful characteristic that you do not. That's both fair and true, but I'm someone without any successful characteristics. > You don't need to have gone to a particular school. All of the interns in question went to top schools of course :) > If you already got into one of FAANG, you almost certainly have a strong baseline skillset already While I wish that were true, unfortunately, the FAANG…
It's helpful for your mental health to not take anecdotal "salary reports" on HN seriously. Whenever salary comes up, everyone here knows someone whose brother's roommate pinky-swear definitely makes $400K at Facebook, therefore this must be "normal salary" there. I've worked for a number of companies talked about here and have never even made close to the "HN Quoted Average Salary." Voluntary online salary boasts from random people are going to tend to bias high. You're probably doing fine.
Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Engineers there routinely make well over $1mm/year. Do you have a source for such claim ? data from h1b salary [1] tells that senior software make 200k base, and here [2] they explain that the average salary is 440k [1] https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=JANE%20STREET&job= [2] https://news.efinancialcareers.com/fr-en/307393/jane-street-...
I know people who work there. That comp data excludes bonuses -- and most importantly -- that employees are able to invest in the proprietary funds themselves, which generate insane returns.
Another thing the HN orthodoxy rejects is that professional investing and trading can make money above monkey-dart levels, despite the abundance of evidence that it does.
Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition
#58For those who don't know, Jane Street is one of the best performing algorithmic trading firms on Wall Street. Probably the largest Ocaml shop on earth. It's a lucrative job for strong programming talent. Engineers there routinely make well over $1mm/year (edit: after a few years). They are similar to Two Sigma in tech focus and talent, which is a more well-known firm.
I think Jane Street is single-handedly keeping OCaml a production-level language (which is a good thing, because it's a great mix of functional programming with a practical/pragmatic approach). If you haven't tried OCaml (or F# which is based on it), I highly recommend it.
Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition
#59For those who don't know, Jane Street is one of the best performing algorithmic trading firms on Wall Street. Probably the largest Ocaml shop on earth. It's a lucrative job for strong programming talent. Engineers there routinely make well over $1mm/year (edit: after a few years). They are similar to Two Sigma in tech focus and talent, which is a more well-known firm.
"Routinely" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I can confirm it's possible, as I've been in the industry and have spoken to people who make seven figures at Jane Street. But I would rather say it's "reasonably attainable" for an engineer who has been there for at least five - seven years and is really hitting their stride with the type of work. They do routinely beat out top tech compensation, and most engineers there…
For the benefit of those outside of quantitative finance, it's important to note that "making $X" is a bit of a fuzzy notion around these parts. Individuals receiving large bonuses generally have their pay closely tied to the health of the business--which can vary quite a bit year to year. It's more accurate to say you've "been making $X." Extrapolating out any meaningful level of comp beyond even a year is a risky proposition.
Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Comparison is the thief of joy. You are more than your work, and I would say you'll always be unhappy if you define your identity or your success by how much money you earn. Someone around you will always earn more than you, or have some other successful characteristic that you do not. That being said: while it's not perfectly meritocratic, I would say tech and (this side of) finance is uniquely attainable for someon…
> or have some other successful characteristic that you do not. That's both fair and true, but I'm someone without any successful characteristics. > You don't need to have gone to a particular school. All of the interns in question went to top schools of course :) > If you already got into one of FAANG, you almost certainly have a strong baseline skillset already While I wish that were true, unfortunately, the FAANG…
You are making 3x the median family income for this country while getting to work from home and stay safe from COVID-19. The job market is imploding around us while we work cushy tech jobs. Abject misery abounds as people lose their loved ones and their livelihoods.
It comes off as as quite tone-deaf when tech people complain about their $150k salaries. There are way too many entitled people in tech who have never worked a shit minimum wage job in their lives.
Look, if you really want to make it to a company like Jane Street, there IS a path. It's not a path that many have the energy to take but it's there. If you are having trouble getting interviews you can do a ton to produce content needed to raise your online profile. You can make lots of meaningful open-source contributions on github. You can produce great blog content. You can code live on twitch and develop a following. If you combine that with actually developing the algorithmic chops to pass their interview process, you can get into a company like Jane Street.
I personally don't view maximizing my income at the expense of all else in my life as a good way to live so I won't be grinding it out to get one of these jobs, but if that's what you really want then the path is there. But you probably will still be unhappy once you achieve it if you're unhappy right now.
And don't be so hard on yourself. If you've made it as far as you have, you definitely have successful characteristics. You're not special, and that's OK. But just because you're not special doesn't mean you don't have successful characteristics.