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What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

blog.janestreet.com

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Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#91

Post by lowiqengineer »

maximente wrote: post #76
lowiqengineer wrote: post #31

Earlier 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...

since you seem to base your self-worth to some extent on your total compensation, what concrete steps (to include interviewing, working with recruiters, consulting, etc.) have you taken to increase your total comp either immediately or in the future?

- Recruiting/resume updates (not many interviews lined up, and even with offers would max out likely less than what I'm currently making)

- Interview preparation (not going well, but I blame my inherent intelligence for that unfortunately)

- Promotion work in my current role (would max out at like $180k)

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#92

Post by rokobobo »

fractionalhare wrote: post #29
maest wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rarely the case that Technology sees those kinds of bonuses; that's most common on the Investment side. And yes, even places like Jane Street separate between Investement and Tech.

In HFT (and often stat arb) the front and back office dichotomy doesn't apply as much. Basically anyone doing nontrivial engineering work has an opportunity to share in the profits of the firm at Jane Street. They don't need to be a quantitative researcher or trader.

In HFT firms algorithm developers are front office as much as traders. (And in some firms, traders don’t even exist as a role.)

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#93

Post by ch4s3 »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #70

I know a guy who works at Jane Street; he was formerly one of the brightest undergrads at Caltech. He turned down an offer to do a PhD at Berkeley to take the Jane Street offer, IIRC. He is pretty idealistic and has an interesting philosophy about working in finance: he thinks moving money around isn't that societally valuable, but he donates 10-15% of his income to charity each year (I think he picks charities using…

I think that's a pretty interesting approach.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#94

Post by grugagag »

Off a tangent but whenever I hear OCaml I can’t stop thinking about F#. I started dabbling in F# in my spare time but time didn’t allow a deepdive. From a few months of playing with it it seems like a solid alternative to other languages and codebases appears to be easier to follow though I never used it in the real world. Does anyone with real world experience have the patience to write about it? Does using F# make coding fun again? Also, does it look like F# will pick up in popularity anytime soon? Thanks

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#95

Post by lowiqengineer »

tcoff91 wrote: post #60
lowiqengineer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wo…

> 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.

This is also the case for people at Google, etc but they still manage to find time to complain about not being able to expense their lunches [0]

Overall I don't disagree, but the path to JS or equivalent companies seems to be astonishingly narrow given the fact that I didn't join there out of undergrad and I'm currently at a company that Jane Street recruiters don't consider to be impressive or noteworthy.

> 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.

I'd say I'm exactly as hard on myself as society is. Everyone else gets constant external validation - all I get is signals to say I'm stupid.

[0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/google-tells-employees-not-t...

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#96

Post by PragmaticPulp »

jolux wrote: post #71

I completed the interview process at Jane Street last year and received a verbal offer after my on-site which they then proceeded to rescind while we were discussing pay ranges, claiming they had decided instead to fill the position I applied for with internal staff. Their recruiter handled it with a high degree of professionalism but the experience left a bad taste in my mouth nonetheless.

Sorry to hear about your experience.

I have to ask: Who gave you the verbal offer? Was it an internal recruiter, external recruiter, or the company's HR department?

I mentor a lot of college students. They're always very nervous about the possibility of rescinded offers despite how rare it is in practice, so I'm curious about the details of your situation.

When mentoring people, I always advise people to never assume an offer is a done deal until you've received the official offer letter with compensation details and a start date. Unethical recruiters are notorious for misleading candidates into thinking the job is a sure thing in order to discourage them from interviewing elsewhere.

When mentoring hiring managers, I emphasize the importance of never misleading candidates into thinking they have a job until we send the official offer letter. It's common for new hiring managers to get so excited that they give the candidate too much information too early. Even simple statements like, "We were really impressed with your performance and now I'm going to work on getting you an offer" can be disastrously misleading to candidates who don't realize that their interviewer/recruiter isn't the only decision maker in the process.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#98

Post by jolux »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #96
jolux wrote: post #71

I completed the interview process at Jane Street last year and received a verbal offer after my on-site which they then proceeded to rescind while we were discussing pay ranges, claiming they had decided instead to fill the position I applied for with internal staff. Their recruiter handled it with a high degree of professionalism but the experience left a bad taste in my mouth nonetheless.

Sorry to hear about your experience. I have to ask: Who gave you the verbal offer? Was it an internal recruiter, external recruiter, or the company's HR department? I mentor a lot of college students. They're always very nervous about the possibility of rescinded offers despite how rare it is in practice, so I'm curious about the details of your situation. When mentoring people, I always advise people to never assume…

Internal recruiter. Thankfully, I didn’t assume it was a done deal, because it wasn’t in writing yet, so I still had opportunities in flight elsewhere.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#99

Post by giantg2 »

fractionalhare wrote: post #19
davidu wrote: post #4

For 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…

All I gleaned from this is that there are tons of people making many multiples more than I ever will and that I'm basically the programmer equivalent of the Yugo (car).

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#100

Post by rob2312 »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #70

I know a guy who works at Jane Street; he was formerly one of the brightest undergrads at Caltech. He turned down an offer to do a PhD at Berkeley to take the Jane Street offer, IIRC. He is pretty idealistic and has an interesting philosophy about working in finance: he thinks moving money around isn't that societally valuable, but he donates 10-15% of his income to charity each year (I think he picks charities using…

https://80000hours.org/articles/earning-to-give/ describes that philosophy in good detail. It's a pretty compelling argument, in my opinion
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