Ask HN: Become a high frequency trader?

[anontrader]

Hello HN,

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.

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.

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.