I'm not sure what measurement would say I'm worth anything.
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.
It's somewhat different in finance, because firms like Jane Street don't have "levels", as it were. There are individual contributors and managers, but to the extent you get a promotion, it's only increasing your scope of work for more money. They don't have well established ladders like FAANG.
But you might be right that the involuntary attrition is equivalent on a percentile basis; that I honestly don't know off the top of my head.
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.
In general there is some truth to what they claim is the difference. It's supposed to be about how complex the work is. Senior devs should be dealing with more architecture/design, more coordinating with other groups/teams, and have greater expertise (they measure this by output and opinions).
If you get promoted they expect more output and hours. The policy is 7.5 hours per day but they unofficially expect 8.5 hours for senior devs and tech leads. It's a 15% jump in hours and only a 7% raise. I've actually filled the role of tech lead and then senior dev for two years on a previous team. They never officially promoted me due to politics and wanting me to work more hours than policy states. I've been passed over and screwed over probably 4 out of my 8 years here.
I think you'd find that, across the universe of technology-driven trading firms, work life balance is worse than tech on average. But you'd also see pretty high variance, which skews the mean quite a bit. Some firms are basically like top tech in terms of work life balance; others not so much.
That being said: while it's not perfectly meritocratic, I would say tech and (this side of) finance is uniquely attainable for someone who has the determination and tenacity to build the requisite skills. You don't need to have gone to a particular school. Barring a felony, your past choices in life will not hold you back.
If you already got into one of FAANG, you almost certainly have a strong baseline skillset already. If it's really important to you, focus on achieving further mastery of your craft and figure out what you need to do to pass an interview at this kind of firm.
That's both fair and true, but I'm someone without any successful characteristics.
> You don't need to have gone to a particular school.
All of the interns in question went to top schools of course :)
> If you already got into one of FAANG, you almost certainly have a strong baseline skillset already
While I wish that were true, unfortunately, the FAANG is Amazon so I don't think that's much proof of anything. I would work towards achieving mastery of what I would need to do to pass an interview, but I can't even get an interview - again, because of my current company and undergrad.
It comes off as as quite tone-deaf when tech people complain about their $150k salaries. There are way too many entitled people in tech who have never worked a shit minimum wage job in their lives.
Look, if you really want to make it to a company like Jane Street, there IS a path. It's not a path that many have the energy to take but it's there. If you are having trouble getting interviews you can do a ton to produce content needed to raise your online profile. You can make lots of meaningful open-source contributions on github. You can produce great blog content. You can code live on twitch and develop a following. If you combine that with actually developing the algorithmic chops to pass their interview process, you can get into a company like Jane Street.
I personally don't view maximizing my income at the expense of all else in my life as a good way to live so I won't be grinding it out to get one of these jobs, but if that's what you really want then the path is there. But you probably will still be unhappy once you achieve it if you're unhappy right now.
And don't be so hard on yourself. If you've made it as far as you have, you definitely have successful characteristics. You're not special, and that's OK. But just because you're not special doesn't mean you don't have successful characteristics.
Seems quite tone-deaf to compare yourself to the worst off. It's easy to pat yourself on the back for not having to sleep in the dirt but that's not a very high bar, is it? Some people want to have purpose and to keep growing and becoming better and more successful -- it's not tone-deaf to want that. And you don't have to absorb the misery of everything that's happening around you or you won't have time to do anything else.
This is also the case for people at Google, etc but they still manage to find time to complain about not being able to expense their lunches [0]
Overall I don't disagree, but the path to JS or equivalent companies seems to be astonishingly narrow given the fact that I didn't join there out of undergrad and I'm currently at a company that Jane Street recruiters don't consider to be impressive or noteworthy.
> And don't be so hard on yourself. If you've made it as far as you have, you definitely have successful characteristics. You're not special, and that's OK. But just because you're not special doesn't mean you don't have successful characteristics.
I'd say I'm exactly as hard on myself as society is. Everyone else gets constant external validation - all I get is signals to say I'm stupid.
[0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/google-tells-employees-not-t...
No one but perhaps the most incapable of taking simple care of themselves is complaining about it. Teams are allocated yearly budgets to do team-oriented events and other things. That money is now going unused. One of the suggestions was to donate it, which is also prohibited, but I guess that's not as catchy of a headline.
The only organizations I would trust to give accurate salary averages are payroll companies, who can properly do a uniform sample, and I don't think they publish their data for free.
Personally knowing someone that makes $X does not necessarily mean that $X is an average or normal compensation.
Or than most engineers make at any point in their careers.
- Interview preparation (not going well, but I blame my inherent intelligence for that unfortunately)
- Promotion work in my current role (would max out at like $180k)
There is a caveat to mention: keep in mind that compensation at these firms exhibits survivorship bias. A new grad engineer at Jane Street will receive around $300 - 400k all in first year compensation: around $150k base, $150k guaranteed end year bonus and $100k sign on bonus. From there, what typically happens is further recalibration a year later. 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.
This means that you may not get an initial pay raise by joining, if you're extended an offer. Engineering offers from top trading firms are often an initial paycut, or an equivalent package, for anyone who is senior or higher at a place like Google and Facebook. You don't generally get to really significant compensation beyond tech until you're a few years in, and implicit in that assumption is that you'll actually stay there.
So let's say you're a new grad with offers from Jane Street, Citadel, Google and Facebook. You'll probably get $400k from Jane Street and Citadel and $200k from Google and Facebook, including sign on bonuses. If you join one of the trading firms right out of school, you'll develop an affinity for the work faster (if you're good enough to stay), and you can reasonably expect to make up to $1M/year by the time you're 30.
But now let's say you're L6/E6 at Google/Facebook. Maybe you're 30 and have $500k total compensation per year. Jane Street isn't going to offer you significantly more than half a million a year just because of your level in tech, unless they have a really pressing need and you're an industry expert. You will probably receive about the same package, with the possibility of making significantly more after developing more experience with their tech stack and work, after a year or two.
The "shock and awe" competitive packages are given to new grads who can be developed from day one, but senior hires require further calibration. There is a ceiling on what trading firms are willing to offer people who have exceptional promise but otherwise no domain experience in finance.
In any case the people I know at Jane Street are consistently exceptional. I highly recommend the firm if you're interested in their work. Likewise Hudson River Trading has a very similar profile but is smaller and has more of a startup feel to it.