The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019)

#91

Post by toddm » Tue, May 03, 2022, 12:42 AM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #89

toddm wrote: post #88

Important to add that this occurred in August 2012 and not in 2019 as the title implies. I had interviewed there in my garden year (2010-2011) and was ultimately not considered for a role as a high-frequency quant.

What is a garden year?

It's paid time off from a financial entity (hedge fund, prop shop, etc.) where you are paid not to compete in their space.

In my case, I had a year to sit-out as a HFT quant from 2010-2011.

Note that it sounds great - you're getting paid not to work - but nobody likes to make you an offer, as it's non-binding and your perceived/real value is declining as the time goes by.

Re: The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019)

#92

Post by emodendroket » Tue, May 03, 2022, 12:51 AM UTC

Aperocky wrote: post #73

throwyawayyyy wrote: post #46

Random, but I interviewed at Knight Capital for a software engineering position a few weeks before this all went down. I was in London, so the interview was done over the phone. Picture me in the evening, handwriting C to solve some problem (the fog of time too thick to remember what that problem was), then reading out what I'd written, semicolons and all, to the interviewer. Because of course there was no shared doc…

this is hilarious, apparently someone on their end thought it was an acceptable interview format, thanks for sharing.

If Yegge's blog is to be believed this is exactly how they used to do it at Amazon too, many moons ago. I think this just used to be common practice. Before my time though.

Re: The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019)

#93

Post by robocat » Tue, May 03, 2022, 12:52 AM UTC

c3534l wrote: post #86

brigandish wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are brackets different in American English? I'd say the Queen should order a second burning down of Washington but, the way things are going, the locals will probably get to it soon.

parens: () brackets: [] braces:{} Versus: brackets: () square brackets: [] curly brackets: {} Still drives me less mad than "inverted commas" though.

But don’t many (most?) US programmers call () parentheses? I assume non-programmers in the US call them brackets?

1.9M results: lisp "parentheses" -brackets

800k results: lisp "brackets" -parentheses

I admit result counts are more similar if lisp is replaced with “python” or “golang”, but square brackets come up more often for those languages.

Disclaimer: I am searching from google.co.nz, and I presume search result counts are not a great proxy measurement for actual usage!

Re: The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019)

#94

Post by FrenchTouch42 » Tue, May 03, 2022, 12:57 AM UTC

isogon wrote: post #43

fullsend wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your comment about pay. Recruiters will often tell me "it's finance so of course the pay will be substantial." Then when we get to talking numbers they're like "300k a year". Oh, you mean the going rate at a FAANG? And I have to move to New York or Chicago, work more hours, and actively work for people who I know are taking home paychecks with 7+ zeroes on them? Come on. Sometimes it's 400 plus bonus or…

I cannot confirm this. ~300k is pay (excluding sign-on) fresh out of college at a big HFT -- sufficiently senior devs make 7 figures.

> sufficiently senior devs make 7 figures

I can confirm, known firm, manager role, offer was $1,3M full cash.

Re: The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019)

#95

Post by nogridbag » Tue, May 03, 2022, 1:04 AM UTC

Bilal_io wrote: post #69

nogridbag wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same! Although I interviewed in person in their NYC office. I was very junior at the time and the team I interviewed with was awesome. I (luckily) didn't get the job. I did a few more interviews and accepted an offer from another company where I met my wife!

Do you return the wife when you leave the job? In all seriousness, you dodged a bullet. Do you remember what problem or set of problems they asked you to solve? Also, what made the interviewing team awesome in your opinion?

The interview was incredibly basic compared to modern FANG style full day interviews. The coding portion was basically a fizzbuzz question. They had a one page printout of a Java method and I needed to give the output. I answered it correctly nearly immediately as it was simply testing pass by reference vs pass by value. The main interview was all verbal q&a core java questions.

Re: The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019)

#96

Post by usefulcat » Tue, May 03, 2022, 1:12 AM UTC

throwyawayyyy wrote: post #46

Random, but I interviewed at Knight Capital for a software engineering position a few weeks before this all went down. I was in London, so the interview was done over the phone. Picture me in the evening, handwriting C to solve some problem (the fog of time too thick to remember what that problem was), then reading out what I'd written, semicolons and all, to the interviewer. Because of course there was no shared doc…

I may well be dense, because I am just not seeing why email would not have been a viable option for sharing code..

Re: The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019)

#97

Post by anusuyaceg » Tue, May 03, 2022, 1:13 AM UTC

throwyawayyyy wrote: post #46

Random, but I interviewed at Knight Capital for a software engineering position a few weeks before this all went down. I was in London, so the interview was done over the phone. Picture me in the evening, handwriting C to solve some problem (the fog of time too thick to remember what that problem was), then reading out what I'd written, semicolons and all, to the interviewer. Because of course there was no shared doc…

Before all these code sharing sites were popular, that's how all the phone screens were done. I had to write my code on paper and dictate on phone. this was before 2011-2012

Re: The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019)

#98

Post by SmellTheGlove » Tue, May 03, 2022, 1:14 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #93

c3534l wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

parens: () brackets: [] braces:{} Versus: brackets: () square brackets: [] curly brackets: {} Still drives me less mad than "inverted commas" though.

But don’t many (most?) US programmers call () parentheses? I assume non-programmers in the US call them brackets? 1.9M results: lisp "parentheses" -brackets 800k results: lisp "brackets" -parentheses I admit result counts are more similar if lisp is replaced with “python” or “golang”, but square brackets come up more often for those languages. Disclaimer: I am searching from google.co.nz, and I presume search result…

No. Most US non-programmers call () parentheses, not brackets.

Re: The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019)

#99

Post by hftthrowaway22 » Tue, May 03, 2022, 1:20 AM UTC

bfm wrote: post #2

The OP details how poor software engineering practices brought down a 1.4B market marker with 1400 employees in 2012. Some of the issues mentioned include: - Keeping synthetic test data generation as part of a production build. - Keeping dead code for years. - Re-purposing a feature flag. - Refactoring without regression tests. - Manual deployments without peer reviews. They forgot to update one of their servers with…

No post body was provided.

Re: The $440M software error at Knight Capital (2019)

#100

Post by alexander-litty » Tue, May 03, 2022, 1:31 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #93

c3534l wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

parens: () brackets: [] braces:{} Versus: brackets: () square brackets: [] curly brackets: {} Still drives me less mad than "inverted commas" though.

But don’t many (most?) US programmers call () parentheses? I assume non-programmers in the US call them brackets? 1.9M results: lisp "parentheses" -brackets 800k results: lisp "brackets" -parentheses I admit result counts are more similar if lisp is replaced with “python” or “golang”, but square brackets come up more often for those languages. Disclaimer: I am searching from google.co.nz, and I presume search result…

In my lifetime, “parentheses” has been the canonical way to refer to () in the US. “Brackets” is an umbrella term that can describe one or all of (), {}, and [].

If you’re in a context where only one of the bracket types would normally be used, you can just call them “brackets.” Since many people never really use [] and {}, “brackets” casually refers to ().

To disambiguate, you can call () “open brackets”, [] “square brackets”, and {} “curly brackets.”

And for the cherry on top, {} can be called “curly braces.” That’s my preferred term for them. But it’s awkward to call [] “square braces” and () “open braces” :)