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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

#151

Post by zerr »

giantg2 wrote: post #102
rtlfe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

How does your daily work differ from a "senior" dev at your company?

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#152

Post by cvhashim »

tossingcomp wrote: post #111
polote wrote: post #8

Earlier 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-...

Anecdata, but I totally believe this. FWIW, I get inbound recruiting from FAANG as well as some prestige finance companies. I'm a generalist with no degree but ~8 years of experience. I make ~$300k/year in NY. Given grapevine comp chatter, I'm sure that pre-Covid I was leaving money on the table versus what I'd earn if I prepped and left for FB or Google. I'm super happy with my employment situation though, so I've j…

As a generalist, why don’t you get into software consulting and just set/bill your own rates. You can bill at 400/hr and earn north of 700k.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#153

Post by hvs »

Scarbutt wrote: post #131
hvs wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there any reason learn OCaml over F# for a new project?

I would look at what libraries you need. If you're a Microsoft house, I would go with F#. If performance is the highest priority, I would go with OCaml.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#154

Post by 0xffff2 »

giantg2 wrote: post #99
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…

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).

If it makes you feel any better, I write flight software for spaceships and this post makes me feel the same way. Salary isn't the only way to measure worth.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#155

Post by nwsm »

yellowstuff wrote: post #150
nwsm wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moving money around isn't that societally valuable I would say hedge funds have massive negative social value (especially quant/HFT ones), and actively contribute to wealth inequity. Robert Mercer is a prime example of this. Not saying I think your friend is a bad person or should quit, but it's kind of a naive justification.

I'm curious why you think HFT is harmful. They do the same job that human market makers used to do, buy vastly more efficiently, leading to lower prices for "customers" (IE lower spreads), and lower profits for the industry: > TABB Group estimates that US equity HFT revenues have declined from approximately $7.2 billion in 2009 to about $1.3 billion in 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140404072855/http://tabbforum…

In reality I agree HFT are not any worse, but with more traditional investment you can make an argument that you are actually trying to help companies succeed and generate value.

Personally I have no reason to think finance billionaires use their wealth more ethically than any other group.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#156

Post by samatman »

giantg2 wrote: post #124
Smaug123 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly quant finance has a lot of really interesting problems in. That XKCD about "why would I want to be paid lots to work on fascinating problems with the brightest people in the world" is… actually kind of true.

My company basically restricts those sort of positions for business people that learn Python and R. They are very hesitant to promote IT people into that type of role. I'm getting tired of implementing/coding other people's solutions or just copying legacy processes into new tech. It would be nice to actually work on the problem and the processes that would most effectively solve them.

That sounds like a recipe for a lateral move. You've got the domain knowledge already; train up with an eye towards what other fintech companies are hiring for, and your chances of busting out of the rut are decent.

Good luck!

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#157

Post by hvs »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #65
hvs wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do you think it would go learning "backwards" from Elixir (which I'm currently learning w/ Phoenix for another purpose)? I've glimpsed through Reason/Bucklescript but never spent real time in them.

I'm not familiar with Elixir, so I can't speak to that. But I would say that once you are familiar with functional programming, the choice of language comes down to what stack your company already uses, library support, and problem area. For instance, I would love to use OCaml, but we are primarily a dotnet house, so I use F# when I can. For Spark stuff, I use Scala. I'm not a language zealot, I prefer to use functional languages, and encourage their use when I can, but I use the best tool for the job within the constraints of the environment I'm working in.

Not sure that's helpful, but I would just say if you are using Elixir you're probably already in a good place development-wise.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#158

Post by paulgb »

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?

Jane Street might be the only place I've applied to cold in my life - I solved one of the puzzles on their site (I'm not sure how important that ended up being) and to my surprise they offered me an interview.

The technical interview was a decent bit harder than Google -- we got deeper into implementation instead of just toy problems. I remember filling the white-board walls of the room with code for a garbage collector. Even though the interviews ostensibly didn't require OCaml, knowing a (tiny, tiny) bit about OCaml garbage collection helped. Every interview was with two employees, which I hadn't seen elsewhere.

I got the offer, but ended up going elsewhere. In part, I was disappointed to find out that there was VBA involved in the role -- it was their taste in languages that appealed to me and VBA was at the opposite end of the spectrum from OCaml!

Weirdly, when I (politely) declined the offer, I never heard another peep from the company, even an acknowledgement or a "good luck". They just ghosted me. Not that they owed me a reply, it just stuck out as the process was very high-touch until that point.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#159

Post by wolco »

bigwavedave wrote: post #133
wolco wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could sue at that point.

For what, exercising the "at-will employment" clause that's in most non-contractor employment contracts? You could no more sue them at that point than they could sue an employee for not giving two-weeks notice. Please don't spread misinformation.

In Canada this is not true and can be backed up with cases.

If you live in an at-will state I completely understand you would have few rights.

An employer can sue you for two weeks and any damages that comes from that event.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2020 edition

#160

Post by nwsm »

logicslave12 wrote: post #149
nwsm wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moving money around isn't that societally valuable I would say hedge funds have massive negative social value (especially quant/HFT ones), and actively contribute to wealth inequity. Robert Mercer is a prime example of this. Not saying I think your friend is a bad person or should quit, but it's kind of a naive justification.

Are you aware of how few people get rich in the hedge fund industry? It’s not much more than people getting rich in Vegas and on lottery tickets

Billions are generated for investors every year by hedge funds.

Obviously there are not many Robert Mercers making money by running hedge funds, but there are countless millionaires and billionaires exacerbating their wealth through hedge funds.

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