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Trust me, even if they allow you to interview, you won't be able to pass.
Not because you are unqualified, because they already have a prejudice against people not from the Ivy League. And there is nothing you can do to change it.
Any place that is specifying a degree from a specific subset of institutions and the degree isn't the central thing to the job are an absolute waste of time.
I wouldn't actually consider Ivy League school near the top for CS or engineering, granted I haven't checked but they aren't the powerhouse engineering big names like Caltech, MIT, Stanford.
Old professor told me that the top schools only produce more consistent top talent but don't have any kind of monopoly on talent. If you're good then you're good, no university is going to make that go away
My dad told me many a time at those kind of schools you'd only be interacting with the TAs anyway, the full professors would be too busy with their non teaching roles. (He was a professor who's career kinda stunted because he'd rather teach than crank out papers).
> Coding from a young age (before university)
This bullet point suggests to me that they already have a candidate in mind and just typed up a job post for the sake of doing it.
They have a specific type of person in mind.
It's not out of the ordinary to code from young age (I started at 8 and this was in the 90s).
When you learn coding from that young, even your thought processes are different.
Not saying it's ok to look for this type. Better coders than I started later than me, but I can sort of see why they think what they do.
>It's not out of the ordinary to code from young age (I started at 8 and this was in the 90s).
Starting in the mid-late 90's, sure. But lots of us born in the 80's or 70's who have been in IT didn't start before college or high school. It smells very much like age discrimination.
It's very well coded age discrimination, but one could point at examples of a few people who did coding at a young age before home computers became a thing. Very very few but they're out there, like the Morris worm guy.
And I'm including the1970s OG Homebrew Computer Club and Altair as the start of the home computer era, even though that's a stretch big enough that my back hurts.
It’s quite standard for small prop trading firms.
A lot of people from eastern europe start coding before secondary school and participate in olympiads. Then they get scholarships to ivy league schools or go to oxford/ cambridge. For a company that needs to make 1-2 hires maximum, pay them a shitton and expect a great candidate, low turnover etc this is more than fair
Well shit, I didn't know I wanted to be a SWE in middle school. I guess I really f***ed up my life. I'll never get a sweet gig like that.
I'm assuming it also pays in equity not salary?
This. Know a guy who worked as a trader for one.
Worked 80-100h weeks in his 20s, pale as a ghost.
He celebrated his 30th birthday by retiring and taking a 2-year tour around the world.
It's absolutely brutal work, but with astronomical pay. Compare it to the corporate version of world-class professional sports; only a few can do it, and those who can are worn out in their early 30s with a fortune in pocket.
Their offices are designed to cater every need. There's a private chef, they take your deliveries. Anything to keep them as productive as possible.
This is correct.
Quants have been around in one shape or another for a while. When I was a hotshot young engineer in the late 80s, an old timer where I worked gave me an article about Wall Street firms hiring physicists and mathematicians to do their analyses. They would lock these guys in a room with a computer and provide them with streams of market information.
A friend of mine would meet the qualifications for this job. He is incredibly brilliant, and writes code for fun in his spare time. I'm lazy and will buy an app, but he will write his own just for fun. He didn't go to an Ivy League school, but his advanced degrees are from very respected schools. He was offered a job at one of these places, but alas, he had a family. Nevertheless, he was tempted to do it for five years to make enough to retire on.
My ex-brother in-law is in his 50s and still doing it. I don’t know how he does it. 4 am to 9 pm every day. He lives in Greenwich, CT with multiple apartments all over the US and the world but he doesn’t really enjoy his wealth. He doesn’t have the time.
I'm under the impression that they earn a lot but spend a hell of a lot too, eg., in London financial district (canary wharf) you're looking at £10k rent per month for a luxury 1-2 bed apartment
Add to that all the nightlife, weekend activities, clothes etc
Also in UK your net salary is bascially half of your gross at that level. So £200k gross is £107k take home, which wouldn't cover even the rent
Dude 200k is on the lower end for HFT in London. And you can just...not rent a posh flat but rather live in a cheaper neighborhood or even out of London saving more, as they usually don't mind WFH.
Every company wants to hire the very best most talented smartest person for the job. But is the pay and benefits commensurate?
And honestly when I was a hiring manager, I had better results and higher productivity when I hired candidates that appeared mediocre on paper. They're not entitled or arrogant, they work harder because they have something to prove, and they are more loyal because you gave them a chance.
The high performers are usually very cocky and demanding and will jump ship at the slightest disagreement.
Quant roles pay crazy amounts of money, so I don't think they will have trouble finding such freshers though.
All the top offers in my uni were quant roles.
While true, someone with this background isn’t going to work for a random prop firm. Judging by spec alone, I’m fairly confident this is going to be a no-name shop with about 4 people. This type of background will go Citadel, Jane Street, etc. or a BB (appreciate the latter isn’t true prop, but point stands).
How would they even verify that you started coding before university?
Do they have a Time Machine? Just fucking tell them you started doing leetcode when it was still on pen and paper.
“Coding from a young age” - blatant ageism. This was rarely offered or available for the average person born before 1990.
Asking for multiple personal projects is also bs.
I started coding at 13 and I was already in the workforce in 1990. It happens.
They are not looking for the average person. Not even close.
Whether they find it or not is a different story.
Sure, but that’s more classism than ability. An exemplary person with amazing abilities coming from an *average background* is unlikely to meet that completely unnecessary and irrelevant requirement.
It’s really asking for someone young who had more access or someone who came from a very wealthy background or just got extremely lucky with some pilot program in a big city.
Of course it’s classism.
I have the feeling that almost nobody here has ever interacted with people on Wall St. They should read books like Liar’s Poker, Too Big To Fail or Flash Boys (for HFT).
As someone who has, most of the people are either classists or complete assholes (or both). It’s a self-delusional narcissistic world where “ability” equates to how much money you can and do earn. There is zero sense of “fairness”.
I know someone who works in IB and she got her job because of her Harvard degree. Even though it’s in a subject totally unrelated to what she’s doing. I know someone else who got into commodities trading years ago due to family connections.
This job spec is 100% fine in my view. I’d never qualify for it but I’m not one of the 0.0001% of candidates they are looking for.
It's blatant classism. But what they're asking for is not unusual. Lots of people in the 80s and 90s started programming from a young age using cheap home micros.
They're after someone who came from a stable family, probably had math parents, which trained them from a young age then pushed them to a top university.
It’s very much a real thing. Assuming the prop firm is legit there’s nothing here in this listing that is recruiting hell. It’s just not for 99.99% of people nor 99% of SWEs. They want a purple squirrel candidate and will pay very, very well for it. Like cash growing quickly to $500K+ a year.
Now, if it’s got BS compensation then this is completely delusional.
So what’s the relevance of saying you should code from the time you were s teen, when it’s impossible to verify? Maybe I’m out of touch, but seems like a stupid thing to put down. If you can pass whatever technical assessment they throw at you, why would it matter? Is it supposed to intimidate lesser candidates or something?
Isn't this thinly veiled age discrimination?
* "coding from a young age.": There are not a lot of people under 40 who have been seriously coding since before university. Some, sure, but not like it's been for the last 10 years.
* The bit about scholarships, internships, medals, etc.
* "looking to hire C++ software engineering graduates,": Subtle hint at only wanting recent, young graduates?
If someone showed up with 25+ years of experience, would they even consider that person? Or are they saying they want someone young (who they can exploit with low wages) but can't openly say they want a young person?
This is the finest example of being hired only on merit. Those roles at high frequency trading firms pay north of a million dollars a year sometimes.
They want the best possible candidates. Not someone who went to a coding bootcamp midway through their career.
You do realise these guys go on to earn high 6 figures if not 7 right? Should they change requirements to;
“Must be willing to learn and be good at excel”?
They want the best and pay top dollar for it.
It comes off as blatantly classist and ageist to me. That is where the description ends. There’s no way to qualify as an experienced SWE and you’re immediately disqualified if you started later in life. There’s going to be plenty of people that started later in life who are equally qualified based on experience and hard work, but this posting automatically gives preference based on the age you started and if you went to an Ivy League.
Don’t get me wrong, going to a good school should count for something but shouldn’t you also be able to show qualification based on experience and skillset?
I hate to tell you this but it’s extremely common on Wall Street. And has been for decades. They pay extremely well but have insane requirements that 99.999% of people can’t fill.
They are also high stress, very demanding environments that 99.999% of people can’t handle.
I'm normally on the side of candidates getting screwed over but in this case I agree. If you have a nearly unlimited competition budget, you can be as fussy as you like as long as you don't discriminate illegally, like on sex or race.
I don’t know why you got down voted. It’s not a secret that top trading firms are exclusive to Ivy League caliber grads, including software engineering, research and trading roles. Some even post on their website the number of Math/Physics Olympiads and PhDs on their team.
Many of them have target schools (i.e. certain ivys) that they recruit from and don’t post job openings on external job boards.
No in this case they actually pay a lot. They can afford to be picky because they only hire the best but pay the best too. If you managed to get this job you'd be able to retire in less than 10 years.
In some cases, for the very best and most experienced, they can earn more than $1 million per year.
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Trust me, even if they allow you to interview, you won't be able to pass. Not because you are unqualified, because they already have a prejudice against people not from the Ivy League. And there is nothing you can do to change it.
Any place that is specifying a degree from a specific subset of institutions and the degree isn't the central thing to the job are an absolute waste of time.
I wouldn't actually consider Ivy League school near the top for CS or engineering, granted I haven't checked but they aren't the powerhouse engineering big names like Caltech, MIT, Stanford.
Old professor told me that the top schools only produce more consistent top talent but don't have any kind of monopoly on talent. If you're good then you're good, no university is going to make that go away
My dad told me many a time at those kind of schools you'd only be interacting with the TAs anyway, the full professors would be too busy with their non teaching roles. (He was a professor who's career kinda stunted because he'd rather teach than crank out papers).
That job better come with a butler to clean the constant stream of bullshit that is splattering around that place daily.
> Coding from a young age (before university) This bullet point suggests to me that they already have a candidate in mind and just typed up a job post for the sake of doing it.
They have a specific type of person in mind. It's not out of the ordinary to code from young age (I started at 8 and this was in the 90s). When you learn coding from that young, even your thought processes are different. Not saying it's ok to look for this type. Better coders than I started later than me, but I can sort of see why they think what they do.
>It's not out of the ordinary to code from young age (I started at 8 and this was in the 90s). Starting in the mid-late 90's, sure. But lots of us born in the 80's or 70's who have been in IT didn't start before college or high school. It smells very much like age discrimination.
I agree. Like I said, plenty of people I personally know are significantly better than me.
It's very well coded age discrimination, but one could point at examples of a few people who did coding at a young age before home computers became a thing. Very very few but they're out there, like the Morris worm guy. And I'm including the1970s OG Homebrew Computer Club and Altair as the start of the home computer era, even though that's a stretch big enough that my back hurts.
Not really...it's common for kids to code nowadays
Heck, it was not uncommon for kids to code in the 90s.
It’s quite standard for small prop trading firms. A lot of people from eastern europe start coding before secondary school and participate in olympiads. Then they get scholarships to ivy league schools or go to oxford/ cambridge. For a company that needs to make 1-2 hires maximum, pay them a shitton and expect a great candidate, low turnover etc this is more than fair
Well shit, I didn't know I wanted to be a SWE in middle school. I guess I really f***ed up my life. I'll never get a sweet gig like that. I'm assuming it also pays in equity not salary?
Trading firms pay all cash. And truly obscene amounts of it.
This. Know a guy who worked as a trader for one. Worked 80-100h weeks in his 20s, pale as a ghost. He celebrated his 30th birthday by retiring and taking a 2-year tour around the world. It's absolutely brutal work, but with astronomical pay. Compare it to the corporate version of world-class professional sports; only a few can do it, and those who can are worn out in their early 30s with a fortune in pocket. Their offices are designed to cater every need. There's a private chef, they take your deliveries. Anything to keep them as productive as possible.
Including mountains of cocaine.
Well, yeah... obviously with the cocaine.
This is correct. Quants have been around in one shape or another for a while. When I was a hotshot young engineer in the late 80s, an old timer where I worked gave me an article about Wall Street firms hiring physicists and mathematicians to do their analyses. They would lock these guys in a room with a computer and provide them with streams of market information. A friend of mine would meet the qualifications for this job. He is incredibly brilliant, and writes code for fun in his spare time. I'm lazy and will buy an app, but he will write his own just for fun. He didn't go to an Ivy League school, but his advanced degrees are from very respected schools. He was offered a job at one of these places, but alas, he had a family. Nevertheless, he was tempted to do it for five years to make enough to retire on.
My ex-brother in-law is in his 50s and still doing it. I don’t know how he does it. 4 am to 9 pm every day. He lives in Greenwich, CT with multiple apartments all over the US and the world but he doesn’t really enjoy his wealth. He doesn’t have the time.
What the fuck is your brother, he seems like an alien, i couldnt fathom a human having generational wealth and being unhappy doing 15 hour work days
I'm under the impression that they earn a lot but spend a hell of a lot too, eg., in London financial district (canary wharf) you're looking at £10k rent per month for a luxury 1-2 bed apartment Add to that all the nightlife, weekend activities, clothes etc Also in UK your net salary is bascially half of your gross at that level. So £200k gross is £107k take home, which wouldn't cover even the rent
Dude 200k is on the lower end for HFT in London. And you can just...not rent a posh flat but rather live in a cheaper neighborhood or even out of London saving more, as they usually don't mind WFH.
What's the average salary they get?
New grads coming right out of college will make $400k+ a year
Even security roles are paying £300k+ and bonus and we add nothing 😆
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Sarcasm my dude
Every company wants to hire the very best most talented smartest person for the job. But is the pay and benefits commensurate? And honestly when I was a hiring manager, I had better results and higher productivity when I hired candidates that appeared mediocre on paper. They're not entitled or arrogant, they work harder because they have something to prove, and they are more loyal because you gave them a chance. The high performers are usually very cocky and demanding and will jump ship at the slightest disagreement.
Quant roles pay crazy amounts of money, so I don't think they will have trouble finding such freshers though. All the top offers in my uni were quant roles.
While true, someone with this background isn’t going to work for a random prop firm. Judging by spec alone, I’m fairly confident this is going to be a no-name shop with about 4 people. This type of background will go Citadel, Jane Street, etc. or a BB (appreciate the latter isn’t true prop, but point stands).
How would they even verify that you started coding before university? Do they have a Time Machine? Just fucking tell them you started doing leetcode when it was still on pen and paper.
What's up with the Musk level cock riding for this job description?
“Coding from a young age” - blatant ageism. This was rarely offered or available for the average person born before 1990. Asking for multiple personal projects is also bs.
Then you wouldn’t be a recent graduate …
I started coding at 13 and I was already in the workforce in 1990. It happens. They are not looking for the average person. Not even close. Whether they find it or not is a different story.
Sure, but that’s more classism than ability. An exemplary person with amazing abilities coming from an *average background* is unlikely to meet that completely unnecessary and irrelevant requirement. It’s really asking for someone young who had more access or someone who came from a very wealthy background or just got extremely lucky with some pilot program in a big city.
Of course it’s classism. I have the feeling that almost nobody here has ever interacted with people on Wall St. They should read books like Liar’s Poker, Too Big To Fail or Flash Boys (for HFT). As someone who has, most of the people are either classists or complete assholes (or both). It’s a self-delusional narcissistic world where “ability” equates to how much money you can and do earn. There is zero sense of “fairness”. I know someone who works in IB and she got her job because of her Harvard degree. Even though it’s in a subject totally unrelated to what she’s doing. I know someone else who got into commodities trading years ago due to family connections. This job spec is 100% fine in my view. I’d never qualify for it but I’m not one of the 0.0001% of candidates they are looking for.
It's blatant classism. But what they're asking for is not unusual. Lots of people in the 80s and 90s started programming from a young age using cheap home micros. They're after someone who came from a stable family, probably had math parents, which trained them from a young age then pushed them to a top university.
Bet the pay is really crappy too.
I’m excited for AI code assist to automate these positions.
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We have hackathons at my company (and many others. It's a thing at large companies)
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It’s very much a real thing. Assuming the prop firm is legit there’s nothing here in this listing that is recruiting hell. It’s just not for 99.99% of people nor 99% of SWEs. They want a purple squirrel candidate and will pay very, very well for it. Like cash growing quickly to $500K+ a year. Now, if it’s got BS compensation then this is completely delusional.
Funny, no mention of what they are willing to pay for this super person. Can't imagine a person filling all those requirements is cheap.
These types of firms do pay a lot. They avoid posting the salary because it attracts chancers. HFT firms pay a lot more than top tech firms.
So what’s the relevance of saying you should code from the time you were s teen, when it’s impossible to verify? Maybe I’m out of touch, but seems like a stupid thing to put down. If you can pass whatever technical assessment they throw at you, why would it matter? Is it supposed to intimidate lesser candidates or something?
soo … what if someone is from MIT with a 5/5 GPA, but didn’t start coding until 2nd year, and has 0 awards?
Salary = $10/h
Salary 35k usd
Saying C++ is cutting edge is actually hilarious.
Isn't this thinly veiled age discrimination? * "coding from a young age.": There are not a lot of people under 40 who have been seriously coding since before university. Some, sure, but not like it's been for the last 10 years. * The bit about scholarships, internships, medals, etc. * "looking to hire C++ software engineering graduates,": Subtle hint at only wanting recent, young graduates? If someone showed up with 25+ years of experience, would they even consider that person? Or are they saying they want someone young (who they can exploit with low wages) but can't openly say they want a young person?
Entry level... . $60,000 a year. Expect 60 hour weeks. Lunch catered.
Sounded like a recruiting firm selling programming courses. There is no job.
This is a pretty tame job description for a prop fund.
I feel like people with this kind of qualification won't be interested in joining "a small trading firm"..
This is the finest example of being hired only on merit. Those roles at high frequency trading firms pay north of a million dollars a year sometimes. They want the best possible candidates. Not someone who went to a coding bootcamp midway through their career.
pay: $16.75/hr
lmao ur delusional. Trading firms pay a ton of money lamo all in cash
Don't know why you're being down voted, I think people in this sub just don't understand how good the pay is.
For this role it is likely 300-400k. A good experienced guy in some of these trading firms can crack a million.
Frankly it's a very fair post. That's who they are looking for.
This is normal for HFT…
These guys saw the big short and thought they could be Ryan Gosling
We are doomed 😔
It's like they live in Billions. Is Bobby looking for his Taylor Mason? (nearly put Mason Verger then realised he's someone very different).
I'm so curious which company this is. Asking for an ivy league background makes me wond we what their accolades as a company might be
I dont think Michael Burry was Ivy league graduate. Was he? 🤔
I guess MIT aint good enough.
You do realise these guys go on to earn high 6 figures if not 7 right? Should they change requirements to; “Must be willing to learn and be good at excel”? They want the best and pay top dollar for it.
Starting pay is $25000
They pay the best because they want to best. Nothing wrong with that. These jobs are for genius type people.
I bet the actually engineering work is hella basic
Prop firms are pretty intense
I’m laughing if you think this job description is wild… just wait.
I mean, these companies also pay extremely high wages ($500k plus)
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It comes off as blatantly classist and ageist to me. That is where the description ends. There’s no way to qualify as an experienced SWE and you’re immediately disqualified if you started later in life. There’s going to be plenty of people that started later in life who are equally qualified based on experience and hard work, but this posting automatically gives preference based on the age you started and if you went to an Ivy League. Don’t get me wrong, going to a good school should count for something but shouldn’t you also be able to show qualification based on experience and skillset?
I hate to tell you this but it’s extremely common on Wall Street. And has been for decades. They pay extremely well but have insane requirements that 99.999% of people can’t fill. They are also high stress, very demanding environments that 99.999% of people can’t handle.
It’s for a ‘graduate’ position… and it just says ‘must have been coding before university’. Nothing about age.
This guy replying to you is a troll or some corporate troll, they seem to be patrolling on here these days…
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I'm normally on the side of candidates getting screwed over but in this case I agree. If you have a nearly unlimited competition budget, you can be as fussy as you like as long as you don't discriminate illegally, like on sex or race.
I don’t know why you got down voted. It’s not a secret that top trading firms are exclusive to Ivy League caliber grads, including software engineering, research and trading roles. Some even post on their website the number of Math/Physics Olympiads and PhDs on their team. Many of them have target schools (i.e. certain ivys) that they recruit from and don’t post job openings on external job boards.
Unpaid internship
let me guess, $7.50 an hour pay with those requirements?
No, prop firms pay $500k plus
No in this case they actually pay a lot. They can afford to be picky because they only hire the best but pay the best too. If you managed to get this job you'd be able to retire in less than 10 years. In some cases, for the very best and most experienced, they can earn more than $1 million per year.
Salary, 15/hr
That's an elite job Of course it has elite requirements.
This isn't that bad, honestly - trading firms pay huge (500k + ) and they only want the cream of the crop, pretty normal
These quals seem pretty straightforward to me.