It would be cool to start seeing more of this from other companies. Also, I wonder if anyone has done an extensive cost-benefit analysis of using OCaml instead of a more common language. It seems like the training and cost of always needing to build your own frameworks would be exceptionally high.
Why "exceptionally" high? The programmers you are hiring are (or should be!) bright, they learn new things fast, and OCaml is not very difficult to learn.
At any software company you have to learn new things. Every company has its internal development stack and custom software, unless the company literally isn't a software company at all or is doing something so unoriginal and dull that you wouldn't want to work there.
>>> and [any language] is not very difficult to learn.
I'm all for training and learning, but pretending that anything can be picked up quickly and easily is just wrong, especially in a trading environment.
Any typo or bug is going to cost millions of dollars, it's very hostile to newcomers. They will be struggling enough to learn about finance and the company.
It seems like the training and cost of always needing to build your own frameworks would be exceptionally high
It is purely a matter of volume - are you doing enough business to make it worthwhile?
The last company I worked for had in-house database, programming language, IDE for that language, version control system, job scheduler... At the time they started doing that there was nothing available that did what they needed, and even now, their stack does things that I'm not sure I've seen outside, tho' 10 years on it's less clear that it would be worth starting a project like that from scratch now.
Remember, in business, there are no concepts of "cheap" or "expensive", there is only "worth it" or "not".
> There is, as you can imagine, a lot of ground to cover. With 45 interns between our NY, London and Hong Kong offices, there were a lot of exciting projects.
Wait, we're leaving the defense of our realm against mystical incursion to interns?
What tech interns do at trading companies, especially JS, always amazes me. Not because of the complexity of the problem domain but rather the rigor of the solution.
Something like Tristan Hume's famous blog post [0] on Tree Diffing would be unthinkable at Amazon, or most likely even Google or FB. If it's for internal use, they'd just slap together whatever works and looks nice, test the crap out of it and launch (part 2 optional). Nobody would want to spend weeks minimizing the white space like this, especially over 5 weeks.
I know multiple people who have interned at Trading companies - all making more than $9k a month - working on optimizing React rendering for tables. They have solutions that are amazing and wonderful because they are superior engineers and computer scientists than mere mortals like me, but for the problem space it seems pretty ridiculous.
I know people who have done crazy stuff that has gone into production during their Google, Facebook, or even lesser companies like Amazon internships but were compensated a fraction ($6k a month at Amazon vs. $10k a month at JS). I guess this is the dollar value difference of prestige.
It really sounds like you worship these kinds of companies and the people who work there. Hopefully it’s not too personal, but the grass might not be greener on the other side. I grew up in a relatively wealthy family, with extended family coming from poorer backgrounds - and they were just as happy as us. At the end of the day it’s up to you if course, I’d just recommend reflecting on what about those companies/people truly is aspirational besides hot “job prospects.”
I spend too much of my day looking at the LinkedIns and Instagrams of my friends and peers who are at "top companies".
1) They all have legitimate accomplishments. They have USAMO/USACO medals, chess trophies, ISEF distinctions, National Merit Scholarships, multiple research papers, etc. Because of this they are all interesting people and have significant pedigree, even if some of them went to similar schools as me.
2) Almost all of them seem to be very photogenic and have wide friend groups who do expensive activities with them (flying, skydiving, Europe trips, skiing, traveling to Thailand, flying to Colorado for the weekend to hike, etc). Even when they're not spending money they're still doing cool stuff, like going to expensive company events or traveling in business class to events.
3) Their friend groups are also accomplished, highly pedigreed individuals. Meanwhile I moved to a new city without knowing anyone now that my intern cohort moved to better and more impressive companies.
They all have the money to do anything they want without any real fear, whereas I do not. I don't have their wide friend groups at my company, and the lifestyles of the people at my company are decidedly "normal" because of my peers' advanced ages and differing priorities (many have kids and didn't go to elite schools).
The opportunity to rigorously work on the best solution to a problem was probably my favourite part of Jane Street's engineering culture. They really care about taking your time to do things right rather than getting things hacked together as soon as possible. This means that all the code you touch is very well designed and the systems are all pretty great, it's quite awesome.
> I know multiple people who have interned at Trading companies
> - all making more than $9k a month - working on
> optimizing React rendering for tables. They have
> solutions that are amazing and wonderful because
> they are superior engineers and computer scientists
> than mere mortals like me, but for the problem space
> it seems pretty ridiculous.
This is interesting to me. What companies are you referring to?
Where the interns paid, at a market rate? This seems like legal documentation demonstrating that they were working on core development for the firm. So without fair pay, that is illegal is it not?
Jane Street pays interns a little more than $60/hr. Pretty competitive. Definitely in line with unicorns and big tech ($50/hr @ FB and AirBnb, $45 @ Apple, etc)
Airbnb is ~$40 an hour but they have unlimited overtime.
From what I've heard Apple starts at $38 an hour.
FB isn't hourly, it's $8k a month.
Amazon is $7.725k a month or $7.2k if you take corporate housing. It's more in California and NYC - $8.4k a month, or $7.9k if you take corporate housing.
Of course they were fairly paid. Probably at least 80k/yr amortized for their work. At least that is how it happens at every other big tech company, and I'm sure if you can intern at jane street you can intern at amazon et al.
Readit News
At any software company you have to learn new things. Every company has its internal development stack and custom software, unless the company literally isn't a software company at all or is doing something so unoriginal and dull that you wouldn't want to work there.
I'm all for training and learning, but pretending that anything can be picked up quickly and easily is just wrong, especially in a trading environment.
Any typo or bug is going to cost millions of dollars, it's very hostile to newcomers. They will be struggling enough to learn about finance and the company.
Building your own frameworks usually saves some time at the beginning, but the costs usually outweigh the benefits later on.
Sorry to be pedantic, but the distinction between libraries and frameworks is important, in my opinion.
It is purely a matter of volume - are you doing enough business to make it worthwhile?
The last company I worked for had in-house database, programming language, IDE for that language, version control system, job scheduler... At the time they started doing that there was nothing available that did what they needed, and even now, their stack does things that I'm not sure I've seen outside, tho' 10 years on it's less clear that it would be worth starting a project like that from scratch now.
Remember, in business, there are no concepts of "cheap" or "expensive", there is only "worth it" or "not".
Dead Comment
Wait, we're leaving the defense of our realm against mystical incursion to interns?
Something like Tristan Hume's famous blog post [0] on Tree Diffing would be unthinkable at Amazon, or most likely even Google or FB. If it's for internal use, they'd just slap together whatever works and looks nice, test the crap out of it and launch (part 2 optional). Nobody would want to spend weeks minimizing the white space like this, especially over 5 weeks.
I know multiple people who have interned at Trading companies - all making more than $9k a month - working on optimizing React rendering for tables. They have solutions that are amazing and wonderful because they are superior engineers and computer scientists than mere mortals like me, but for the problem space it seems pretty ridiculous.
I know people who have done crazy stuff that has gone into production during their Google, Facebook, or even lesser companies like Amazon internships but were compensated a fraction ($6k a month at Amazon vs. $10k a month at JS). I guess this is the dollar value difference of prestige.
[0]: http://thume.ca/2017/06/17/tree-diffing/
1) They all have legitimate accomplishments. They have USAMO/USACO medals, chess trophies, ISEF distinctions, National Merit Scholarships, multiple research papers, etc. Because of this they are all interesting people and have significant pedigree, even if some of them went to similar schools as me.
2) Almost all of them seem to be very photogenic and have wide friend groups who do expensive activities with them (flying, skydiving, Europe trips, skiing, traveling to Thailand, flying to Colorado for the weekend to hike, etc). Even when they're not spending money they're still doing cool stuff, like going to expensive company events or traveling in business class to events.
3) Their friend groups are also accomplished, highly pedigreed individuals. Meanwhile I moved to a new city without knowing anyone now that my intern cohort moved to better and more impressive companies.
They all have the money to do anything they want without any real fear, whereas I do not. I don't have their wide friend groups at my company, and the lifestyles of the people at my company are decidedly "normal" because of my peers' advanced ages and differing priorities (many have kids and didn't go to elite schools).
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From what I've heard Apple starts at $38 an hour.
FB isn't hourly, it's $8k a month.
Amazon is $7.725k a month or $7.2k if you take corporate housing. It's more in California and NYC - $8.4k a month, or $7.9k if you take corporate housing.
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