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What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

blog.janestreet.com

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Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#41

Post by Barrin92 »

chatmasta wrote: post #4

I always love these posts. Great job to the interns. Building a tokenizer with a handcrafted automaton instead of a regex sounds like a cool project. And I found it interesting that Jane Street has a frontend for interacting with different AI services and LLMs. I'm curious how that's used. But to be honest, what surprised me most about that was that Jane Street cares about counting the token usage in its API calls. I…

>They have billions of dollars, so it struck me as odd to see such concern for efficiency

You have it the wrong way around, it's because of that concern that they have billions of dollars. Obsessively making things a tiny bit more efficient is their business. Works both for software and for markets

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#42

Post by mtillman »

chatmasta wrote: post #4

I always love these posts. Great job to the interns. Building a tokenizer with a handcrafted automaton instead of a regex sounds like a cool project. And I found it interesting that Jane Street has a frontend for interacting with different AI services and LLMs. I'm curious how that's used. But to be honest, what surprised me most about that was that Jane Street cares about counting the token usage in its API calls. I…

API costs are margin in trading and margin is everything. If you don’t have a way of managing that margin, you’re not a real trading firm. Pairing this type of execution with HFT would be their long term goal and that requires lots of feedback done in microseconds.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#43

Post by caddemon »

mtillman wrote: post #42
chatmasta wrote: post #4

I always love these posts. Great job to the interns. Building a tokenizer with a handcrafted automaton instead of a regex sounds like a cool project. And I found it interesting that Jane Street has a frontend for interacting with different AI services and LLMs. I'm curious how that's used. But to be honest, what surprised me most about that was that Jane Street cares about counting the token usage in its API calls. I…

API costs are margin in trading and margin is everything. If you don’t have a way of managing that margin, you’re not a real trading firm. Pairing this type of execution with HFT would be their long term goal and that requires lots of feedback done in microseconds.

Jane Street isn't an especially big player in HFT, though even with a longer timescale your overall point still stands.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#44

Post by laidoffamazon »

rvrs wrote: post #15
laidoffamazon wrote: post #2

Great article, one I wait for yearly. Relatedly - how do others deal with being objectively inferior, in basically every way, to the types of people that work at Jane Street? It always irks me that they end each of these articles with a recruiting pitch, as if most of us would ever be good enough to even get an interview, much less get an offer.

>Relatedly - how do others deal with being objectively inferior, in basically every way, to the types of people that work at Jane Street? I don't have to deal with this because I don't have a weird inferiority complex towards people who work at some trading firm. The people I know who work there are decent programmers, but as luck would have it I know good programmers outside of Jane Street as well.

I don't know any good developers in Jane Street because I don't know any Jane Street engineers. This is likely because I didn't go to a top school, because I am objectively inferior.

I know many people good at their craft. But I'm nowhere close to these interns in terms of ability, compensation or respect, and my life feels basically over at this point.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#45

Post by laidoffamazon »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #39
laidoffamazon wrote: post #2

Great article, one I wait for yearly. Relatedly - how do others deal with being objectively inferior, in basically every way, to the types of people that work at Jane Street? It always irks me that they end each of these articles with a recruiting pitch, as if most of us would ever be good enough to even get an interview, much less get an offer.

There is always someone with something, for example talent or opportunity, that you don’t have or can’t have. I guess I was lucky to come to terms with “life’s no fair” at a young age. That doesn’t mean I’m defeatist, I’m a very driven person, but it does allow me to be more realistic without becoming demotivated.

I think that's easier to say if you have a good sense of your own positives, but I don't think I have any.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#46

Post by laidoffamazon »

hotnfresh wrote: post #36
kyawzazaw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should talk to a professional therapist. > I make decent to good money (though I don't think most people on HN would agree lol) Actually, HN might. HN is not exactly high compensation chasing.

HN often confuses $300k for low-end-of-normal for early-career US software devs in general, when it’s above most seniors and leads at most employers. You don’t hit that territory until you’re a manager-of-tech-managers, outside the smallish third hump of the trimodal dev compensation graph. My pay’s almost 3x median household income in my medium-sized US city, but is pathetic compared to what I see thrown around regu…

Yeah, $300k isn't considered great for my level of tenure, but it is less than what Jane Street/Jump/HRT new grads make.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#47

Post by laidoffamazon »

asdfman123 wrote: post #37
laidoffamazon wrote: post #2

Great article, one I wait for yearly. Relatedly - how do others deal with being objectively inferior, in basically every way, to the types of people that work at Jane Street? It always irks me that they end each of these articles with a recruiting pitch, as if most of us would ever be good enough to even get an interview, much less get an offer.

Lots of people get into places like Jane Street because they hustle and aren't necessarily any smarter than you. Sometimes feelings of inferiority like this are just a backdoor way to avoid having to put in that work.

I've basically gotten nothing for my hustle lol (except a state school degree and working at Amazon, but I don't think that's considered "accomplished" to these types of people).

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#48

Post by laidoffamazon »

wk_end wrote: post #28
nicolashahn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people that attempt and fail their interviews settle for FAANG and are probably pretty happy. Most software engineers I've met don't even know about Jane Street. Also, definitely not "in basically every way," but very specifically logical/mathematical intelligence.

Yep. I worked at JS, and there's plenty of ways you're probably "superior" to me. Also, ~almost everyone I worked with at JS was brilliant and I don't say this to disparage anyone, even as engineers there were definitely blindspots. Also also: please remember that SBF worked there too.

> and there's plenty of ways you're probably "superior" to me.

I guarantee you there is probably none, lol. I can't play an instrument, I can't lift, I can't run a marathon, haven't written a book, don't know a Presidential candidate - those are all normal things for the Jane Street that came from HYPSM or even the Google class of people, but extremely out of reach for people like me.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#49

Post by laidoffamazon »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #40
laidoffamazon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, 2 of these are at top CS schools that I can't get into, and most of their intern class is from Harvard/CMU/MIT/Stanford/Waterloo and the like. I think I might actually just be objectively inferior in all regards, not just technical or in software. I've got ~5 years of full time experience, I make decent to good money (though I don't think most people on HN would agree lol) but I'm skeptical I could build the…

I’m surprised you put some much value in one gate that you didn’t pass through.

It's not one gate, it's basically every gate (unless you count Amazon as a gate that's impressive, but nobody does).

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#50

Post by steego »

asdfman123 wrote: post #37
laidoffamazon wrote: post #2

Great article, one I wait for yearly. Relatedly - how do others deal with being objectively inferior, in basically every way, to the types of people that work at Jane Street? It always irks me that they end each of these articles with a recruiting pitch, as if most of us would ever be good enough to even get an interview, much less get an offer.

Lots of people get into places like Jane Street because they hustle and aren't necessarily any smarter than you. Sometimes feelings of inferiority like this are just a backdoor way to avoid having to put in that work.

I know a few people from Jane Street so I can easily see why one might come to that conclusion, but I also appreciate your point. Comparing yourself against others can rob you in more than one way.
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