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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

#81

Post by laidoffamazon »

RugnirViking wrote: post #78
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.

> as if most of us would ever be good enough to even get an interview, much less get an offer. try it I dare you. Whats the worst that could happen? Ask for feedback, be confident and open.

I did apply last time I was switching jobs and got a rejection within a few hours. Probably because of my undergrad and company.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#82

Post by laidoffamazon »

chronic62141 wrote: post #7
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? Just don’t compare yourself with people that work at trading firms. Instead, compare yourself with people that work in tech/FANG

I don’t think I compare well with 28 year olds at Google either to be honest!

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#83

Post by caddemon »

nvm0n2 wrote: post #77
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…

I thought the more interesting thing was that they're spending time writing custom tokenizers, regex automatons and logging frameworks at all, just so it can be in OCaml. For the tokenizer they had three more obvious options: 1. Use a JavaScript lib and call it via FFI. Tokenization isn't a hard task. 2. Compile tiktoken to WASM and call it directly. 3. Stick with their Python server. Writing a custom regex automaton…

The primary purpose of an internship at most major companies is hiring - you can screen candidates much better before extending a full time offer and the candidates can also get a better read on how much they'd enjoy working there. Even the second order effect of drumming up hype for others to want to work there is probably more important to many internship programs than whatever the interns might tangibly produce.

At least I can say for sure that people at Google aren't shy about how it takes a few months to get up to speed with internal tooling and not much is actually expected from a summer intern. But they built themselves into a brand on campuses, which became so mainstream there was a stupid movie made about how fun it is supposed to be to intern at Google.

And as far as finance goes, trading interns aren't even legally allowed to trade, so I wouldn't be surprised if the culture surrounding internship at Jane Street just leans more heavily into this for SWEs as well.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#84

Post by jjtheblunt »

euroderf wrote: post #79
jjtheblunt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had years of germanic linguistics in undergrad and grad school, and i think this is an alternate ("archaic") past tense of work, so it's literally "worked", just like you said a blacksmith would do. i mention the germanic classes because i can't at the moment think of other examples where (outside arabic etc) there's a commutativity between a consonant and vowel (work & wrokt) but i'd swear i would think of some if…

Isn't it a form of "wreak" ? Another odd one is "fraught".

I think so.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#85

Post by filoleg »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #48
wk_end wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are a bit delusional about what "google class of people" is, not even mentioning the delusions about the whole concept of those "classes of people" really existing on such a level.

Out of bajillion googlers I personally know well outside of work, I know exactly one that knows a presidential candidate, and it has nothing to do with the school they went to (we both went to the same public college in the south). That's just one out of tons.

> I can't play an instrument, I can't lift, I can't run a marathon

No one is just naturally "good" or "talented" at those things. Those are all just skills that no one is good at (at first), and then they practice those, and then they get better. And yes, not everyone can be Michael Jordan, but I think the bar for "I am pretty good at basketball" is way below the MJ level. That would go for pretty much all of those things you listed. It is all a question of what you are personally interested in and why. Because if you hate playing an instrument just due to its nature, then you probably would find it really difficult to put the time in to get good at it.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#86

Post by laidoffamazon »

filoleg wrote: post #85
laidoffamazon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You are a bit delusional about what "google class of people" is, not even mentioning the delusions about the whole concept of those "classes of people" really existing on such a level. Out of bajillion googlers I personally know well outside of work, I know exactly one that knows a presidential candidate, and it has nothing to do with the school they went to (we both went to the same public college in the south). Tha…

> You are a bit delusional about what "google class of people" is, not even mentioning the delusions about the whole concept of those "classes of people" really existing on such a level

How so? After several years at Amazon and several years of knowing people at other companies it’s apparent the ones at Amazon have a totally different standard of living - one without having Olympic medals (apparently Google publishes a list of Googler-olympians) or famous friends or ski trips. And they don’t even know people that do these things, even though it’s common at Google.

I didn’t even ever meet a Harvard grad when I was at Amazon - it’s hard to not meet one at Google or Jane Street (more so the later of course).

To remind you, I don’t know any and nobody I know knows anybody that knows a presidential candidate, but I go on Twitter for 5 minutes and see a Yale grad with 15 mutual with Vivek. It’s obvious there’s a big club of elites with accomplishments I can’t even dream of and I’m not in it or anywhere close to it.

And yeah, you gotta get good for all of those but everyone starts with some talents (and I have none). Ive been “lifting” for years with zero improvement (probably a protein thing but I’m also fat and vegetarian, the former is probably genetics too despite my failed attempts at starvation). I’ve been leetcoding for years with zero improvement. No matter what I do I’m still mediocre, still a failure no matter how much I work while everyone else gets ahead. What’s even the point of working hard if I’ve never gotten anything for it?

Nobody has ever been able to elucidate ways that I’ve ever accomplished anything, ever.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#87

Post by laidoffamazon »

asdfman123 wrote: post #68
laidoffamazon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Amazon is one of the most prestigious tech employers in the world.

I really doubt anyone that gets an offer at Jane Street would agree with that sentiment. Nobody at elite schools agrees and they all think my class of people are lazy or pitiable failures of some kind (or at least so I assume).

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#88

Post by laidoffamazon »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #3
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.

Comparison is the thief of joy. Be better than who you were yesterday. Exceptional talent is also rare, don’t feel bad if you’re not exceptional. Billions will lead happy, fulfilling lives having not been.

That’s the trouble - I don’t think I’ve ever improved at anything after working at it. SATs, grades, technical abilities all pathetic after years of work, clearly unfocused and lacking because of inherent genetic defects or whatever.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#89

Post by laidoffamazon »

piva00 wrote: post #53
laidoffamazon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Still, having such low self-esteem after individually accomplishing quite a lot more than what 95% of people on Earth (not counting in history) has been able to is a sign you need to look into with some professional help. It's not healthy, your sense of self-value seems to be completely tied to external perceptions and expectations. Answer to yourself: who are you, actually?

I’ve gotten help, none of it has changed anything. The gist of it is just reinforcement that I’m stuck being a failure, clearly unable to progress in life due to a lack of something. Probably a mix of grit and intelligence, heavily weighted on intelligence.

Re: What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition

#90

Post by notsurenymore »

armchairhacker wrote: post #11
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.

“objectively inferior” is rare if it happens at all. Maybe you’re resume will never be good enough in Jane Street’s eyes to get an interview, but unless you also write fintech in OCaml, I bet you’re better than the interns at some niche in software development. These are young interns too. If you’re a senior dev, after a few months of learning OCaml and the popular open-source Jane Street libraries, you maybecould im…

> but unless you also write fintech in OCaml, I bet you’re better than the interns at some niche in software development.

The difference of course is someone at Jane street could like match or exceed you at your niche if they cared, whereas the opposite is unlikely.

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