
What the interns have wrought, 2018 edition - yminsky
https://blog.janestreet.com/what-the-interns-have-wrought-2018/
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msangi
Kudos to Jane Street for giving their inters what seems to be very interesting
projects and for publicly acknowledging their work.

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abalos
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.

~~~
rwmj
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.

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user5994461
>>> 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.

~~~
rwmj
> Any typo or bug is going to cost millions of dollars

Good job they're using a language and other techniques which ensure that bugs
are caught early, often at compile time.

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dmitriid
yeah... no. only certain tupes of bugs.

a compiler can’t catch a bug if you calculate interest rates incorrectly, for
example.

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frou_dh
Minsky is on record as saying they have a maniacal bent for code review & code
readability at Jane Street.

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thomascgalvin
> 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?_

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mondoshawan
Ever use Kerberos? >=)

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stephengillie
That's 1 dog - they have 3 offices to defend.

~~~
wbl
Kerberos. Not your usual guard dog.

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sadamznintern
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.

[0]: [http://thume.ca/2017/06/17/tree-
diffing/](http://thume.ca/2017/06/17/tree-diffing/)

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tozeur
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.”

~~~
sadamznintern
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).

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tern
This perspective is bullshit. You can do anything you want, without real fear,
no matter who you are. There's a panoply of literature to help you change your
mindset. Seek it out.

> 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).

This is an excuse. I am not anything like the friends you described, and I
have a wide circle of friends, and do exactly what I want in life. So does
everyone I call a close friend. They all come from completely different
backgrounds. It took years of hard work to get here. Start now.

Sorry for the off-topic post in this thread, but I think it's deeply important
to refute this kind of thinking. Don't waste your life.

~~~
sadamznintern
Well, for one thing they can do it at 22, with no constraints on the function
they're optimizing. Their hard work was done in 4 years of undergrad and 4
years of high school. I thought I did OK - but apparently I didn't, and now I
have another 8-12 years to even begin to be in the same position they're in
right now. I'm way, way way behind.

~~~
taybin
This is the sort of race where once you get to the end, you realize you were
racing against yourself. Stop comparing your blooper reel to their highlight
reel. It's not healthy. I guarantee there are people envious of your life.

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ilaksh
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?

~~~
jonluca
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)

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sadamznintern
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.

~~~
Kephael
I was told Amazon interns also had to pay $300/mo for not particularly nice
corporate housing in the UW dorms. My understanding was this was in additional
to the salary reduction.

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sadamznintern
Nope, its only a salary reduction. In addition, they get a "husky card" with a
daily stipend for on-campus dining hall/food court meals/gym entrance etc - a
few friends of mine took it and they said the value of the husky card was more
than $300 if they spent all of it.

Also, UW Dorms are only for summer interns. Off cycle interns live in 1
bedroom apartments in SLU. They're _really nice_ with a $500 salary reduction.

