What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition • Hacker News Board

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#101

Post by nesarkvechnep » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

non-entity wrote: post #43

angio wrote: post #38

Earlier 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.

Just to make it clear, OCaml is not purely functional.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#102

Post by giantg2 » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

rtlfe wrote: post #32

fractionalhare wrote: post #19

Earlier 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…

> Either you're good enough to maintain at least that level of comp, and you stay, or you're out within a year or two. Tech companies have explicit up-or-out policies for lower-level engineers. I don't think the top trading firms do any more firing of new grads than FANG does.

I can say my company is basically up-or-out. Even when you get to a senior level they expect continual improvement or a move to management.

I'm an intermediate developer and have been at my company 8 years. I've been told by managers whom I am personal friends with that if I stay at this level much longer (5 years now), then the company might look for a reason to get rid of me.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#103

Post by davidgl » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

grugagag wrote: post #94

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…

I've been working with F# for about 5 years now, love it. The .net ecosystem has a huge amount of libraries available, performance is excellent, and F# is a joy to develop it.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#104

Post by non-entity » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

nesarkvechnep wrote: post #101

non-entity wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just to make it clear, OCaml is not purely functional.

Oh sorry, not sure why I thought it was.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#105

Post by giantg2 » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

non-entity wrote: post #47

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.

Jesus Christ. I can't even imagine making that much annually off wage labor. I must have chose the wrong life path.

Me too, friend, me too. Some of these quoted compensations are more than I've made over my 8 year career.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#106

Post by graeme » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #90

closeparen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assertion is about funds that are open to the general public. No one doubts e.g. Renaissance’s Medallion fund.

OK but it's still just false. Go read this obituary of Richard Gilder who recently passed away. He founded a firm that gave ordinary retail investors consistently high returns for decades. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/about/richard-gilder

The super investors of graham doddsville is also instructive reading on this point.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#107

Post by giantg2 » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

Zaheer wrote: post #73

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.

Also worth noting that Jane Street interns are amongst the highest paid at $83.65 / hour: https://www.levels.fyi/internships/

Wow

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#108

Post by giantg2 » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

jarsin wrote: post #46

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.

How does a normal software developer go about getting in? Do they give the traditional google interview or worse?

I hate to break it to you, but if you're a normal developer like me (you're probably better), then you aren't getting in. There was a recent post on HN about how to be ok with not being a 10x dev or something like that. There's some good stuff in there.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#109

Post by vikasnair » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

rob2312 wrote: post #100

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

Haseeb Q notably donates 30% of their income, citing 80000 as inspiration. Really interesting life story, as well:

https://haseebq.com/about/

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#110

Post by chrisseaton » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

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…

> 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

They can still rescind at that stage as well though can't they - it's no more concrete, legally, is it?