

Ask HN: Become a high frequency trader? - anontrader

Hello HN,<p>I'm a regular here, but staying anonymous for obvious reasons. I'm a hacker in a variety of languages (Python/Ruby/Java/JS/etc) and have been a 'startup guy' (founder or early stage employee) for my last couple of jobs. Had a lot of fun, worked on cool problems, met great people.<p>Now I have an offer to work at High Frequency Trading firm to write very fast code in C/C++/Erlang. Just like a startup, there are a lot of very smart people, the problems are interesting (getting response times down to fractions of a millisecond is something I've never done before ...), and I'd make a lot of money (~200K cash, my first year). The firm is structured so that each 5-10 person group has almost complete autonomy, and it seems very startupish and entrepreneurial.<p>Is there any reason not to go do this? It seems perfect - why don't more hackers take this path?
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ig1
Have a look at:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1435450>

I'm actually going the other way from low-latency pricing/trading to the
startup world. And with that move I'm accepting that chances are I'll make
less money at my startup than I could working in finance.

But money's less important than you think it is, it has diminishing returns.
The difference between $30,000 and $50,000 can be a huge impact to the quality
of your life, the difference between $180,000 and $200,000 is barely
noticeable. Once you have enough money to live comfortably extra money
essentially just means a bigger house or a nicer car, which in the overall
scheme of things have fairly minimal impact on your happiness.

Also it can have other negative externalities, do you really want to be
worried if the girl you started dating actually likes you or is just attracted
by the fact you work for a prop fund ? - and I'm not kidding about this, on
one online careers advice forum where I helped out (hence my background is
somewhat public) I regularly got hit on by girls who are obviously interested
in me because of my job (no that's not a good thing).

Basically what I'm saying is don't do it purely for the money, if it's what
you're passionate about then do it, but if your passion lies elsewhere then
follow it.

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zmmz
I have to second this.

If you consider the industry very "interesting" then go for it, but I would
say think wisely about it.

Finance is one of the most self-indulgent industries out there (more so even
then something like Art), you will be spending a lot of time with a lot of
people that spend their time thinking about either how to make money (usually
trying to find a way of cheating the system) or people who have already made
their money and are now preachers of the free market.

I would recommend that you go check them out for a week if you can, especially
if you are new to finance. It's not for everybody. Check out a few of the
popular blogs (FT Alphaville is a good one) and see if you would be capable of
living in that world.

The same way that hackers love to code and talk nothing else, quants talk
markets and nothing else.

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joshu
I did it for a long time. I learned a lot. A lot of my coworkers were really
talented hackers.

I don't see the downside.

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rhettinger
If my previous experience in the field is any guide, this should be a
rewarding experience for you.

> Is there any reason not to go do this?

It is likely to be a high-stress job. Also, the turn-over in the industry
tends to be very high.

And someday your grandmother will hear something about high frequency trading
on Oprah and decide that your work is evil.

> It seems perfect - why don't more hackers take this path?

Not many are invited. Traders accept only the very best.

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kls
_Is there any reason not to go do this? It seems perfect - why don't more
hackers take this path?_

I think in the past alot of east coasters did take this path. But with NY
coming into it's own with in respect to start-ups. That is starting to change.
I would do it for the domain knowledge alone.

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sh1mmer
Do it for a year. Make $200k and then get out to do something for you. Unless
you like the job.

Personally it's one of those of those industries, like defense, I don't think
I'd want to work for long term interesting problems or not.

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jayruy
Do it, I worked in HFT for a year and enjoyed it. It's a small and secretive
world. People that go this route don't tend to start up "how to" blogs on HFT,
and you'd likely be shunned by the community if you did.

