[shin_lao]

HFT algorithms aren't that complex. When it comes to finding the differences of pricing between two brokers buying from the cheapest and selling to most expensive, there's no need for an advanced pricer (and there's no time anyway).

The difficulty of HFT is designing a machine that can trade fast enough. I'm not sure you realize how difficult this is. You just can't take a quant and make him an über C++ programmer overnight.

There's a reason why you need people with different skills to make money, and the reason is that becoming really skilled in whatever field takes years.

Good companies pay everyone making a direct contribution to the profit a fair share, those who don't lose their talents.

[beagle3]

Have you actually done any HFT work? I know that's what most people believe, but the HFT outfits I am familiar with have algorithms that are extremely complex, and while they need to be fast, just being faster than them with a dumb algorithm won't get you anywhere.

[kingcub]

FWIW I am an HF Programmer Trader, (Jeff Gomberg's Business Partner / Fellow Programmer actually) In certain cases being dumb and fast will get you very far. For example, with an arbitrage strategy, being able to get the arbitrage faster than someone else will make a lot of money and it is all about speed. It is that simple. The problem is that going that fast is very expensive (depending on the trade), so you have to be smart and decide if you can or can't get the other side of the arb in time, and it spirals on from there. But if you were the fastest being smart is less important and vice versa.