[jon-wood]

They’re paying their interns how much? Either finance pays way more than I thought, or that’s wildly off - for comparison as the most senior developer in our London based organisation, having been here since the beginning, I make about $11k a month.

[rauljara]

Former Jane Streeter: yes, finance can pay very well. Of course there’s a lot of variance, but at least when I was there Jane Street made an effort to be the very highest in terms of compensation for interns. The numbers don’t seem off to me. Yes, I understand how ridiculous that is

[noir_lord]

I don't think it is ridiculous if you can afford to and want to pay the absolute top line to get the "best" (best by their metrics not everyone else's - not trying to spark a war).

If you are ultra profitable then the difference between paying market rate and top of market rate might be double the salary and that would still be a rounding error on a spreadsheet somewhere.

I guess it also depends how sensitive your output is to the quality of the developers, lots of enterprises I've worked for you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between a competent developer and an excellent developer since the end result is from a distance pretty much the same in that case it would make no sense to pay more than will get you a bunch of competent developers.

My impression from the outside is that janestreet does see that value.

Some what correlated I love it when companies say "We hire the absolute best developers" and you ask what they pay and market-rate is the answer.

JaneStreet remains fascinating to me though because while they do programming and I'm a programmer we are almost different species because of the problems we solve - which makes it interesting to me.

[throwaway6734]

what's ridiculous about it?

[speedgoose]

As a senior developer in Europe, I'm considering becoming an intern.

[csunbird]

Definitely - although the salaries here (at least in Berlin) are raising from what I can see as well

[saagarjha]

Jane Street interns are known (maybe not in this conversation :P) to get paid exceptionally well. A typical software engineering intern at a large Bay Area company is probably making something approaching $10k.

[formerly_proven]

That’s about the ballpark for a paid SE intern in Germany (per annum, of course).

[webo]

10k per month in the Bay Area.

[catillac]

Yeah we’re a small startup and we pay $120k / 12 per month for interns. Otherwise it’s difficult to get interns at the level we need. Really not surprised finance pays more.

[overrun11]

180k annualized salary for the top few students from MIT, Waterloo, Stanford etc is a steal. They might lack sophistication in navigating bureaucratic processes but I guarantee you they are far more technically competent than even your average senior engineer at a FAANG company. Most companies don't really know how to utilize people with an elite level of skill but Jane Street clearly does and is willing to pay up for it.

[chrisseaton]

Jane Street can’t pay any stock (proprietary firm) so they have to pay a lot more cash.

[pc86]

Do UK/European organizations typically give employees stock?

[travelbuffoon]

14.5k is almost the monthly base pay for a senior software engineer at a FANG in Bay Area/NY/Seattle/ZRH (not counting bonus and stock though - which make a significant difference).

So it does seem very high, but not impossible?

[Jach]

I believe Salesforce offered interns in SF something like $8600+/mo and an option of company-provided housing or an $8k stipend, if they took the latter then their effective pay would be a bit over $11k/mo. So yeah, it doesn't sound unreasonable. Internships only lasted 3 months, so it's not a big burden on the company, plus it gives the intern a salary proxy for what they can expect as minimum if they're invited back for full time the next summer after graduation.

[saagarjha]

No way, I get more than that at an entry position outside of FANG. Senior software engineer pay starts at $25k/month and goes up from there.

Edit: I just noticed base pay–then yes, that's about what it'd be, but base pay tends to cap out very quickly so it's not a good measure of compensation.

[exdsq]

I moved to the bay area at the same time as taking a senior engineering role for an Eastern European startup on $100k - feel like I missed a trick lol :P

To be fair I don't care about salaries as much as half of HN appear to, I'm quite comfortable on that with a wife on a postdocs wage too.

[thrav]

As an American who worked in London and at a London company, London pay is always crazy low compared to what I’d expect.

[saddlerustle]

I think you're not up to date on the engineering market in London. Google London pays $11k/m (£100k/y) TC to strong new grads these days, and it's not uncommon for exceptional ICs in finance to earn up to £1M/y

[TrackerFF]

Jane Street candidates are already top shelf candidates, and can pretty much write their own tickets - so it's in the best interest of companies like JS to capture them for potential full-time employment, before they graduate.

A solid salary helps.

[exdsq]

Jane Street pays a lot - I know of people who earned half a million a year when they worked there in their early 20s

[carnitine]

Jane Street pay graduates in London several hundred thousand pounds.

[Nursie]

> the most senior developer in our London based organisation, having been here since the beginning, I make about $11k a month.

Pre or post tax?

As a London fintech contractor (until recently) I have able to pull in around $22k USD pcm pre tax, or very, very roughly $14k USD pcm post tax - contractors have various ways to manage tax load and time off so it's never a direct translation.

$16.5k pcm for an intern still seems utterly crazy, given my starting annual salary of £21k 20 years ago, but if there is a) a ton of money flowing through the company and b) the intern is able to help them bring in more than that over the course of a year then... I guess it's worth it to them, and that's all that really matters.

[geofft]

Finance pays at least as well as FAANGs (anecdote: in 2017 I had an offer from a FAANG and a finance company, the finance offer was slightly higher, and the FAANG flat-out refused to negotiate a finance offer), and also my sense is that salaries outside the US aren't keeping up at all with the US.

The salary numbers on https://levels.fyi seem to be plausible enough for US FAANG salaries, if you want an idea of what they look like.

[jdavis703]

I’m far from the most senior developer at my company and I make far more than that here in the U.S. To the point I would be insulted if I got a job offer for $11k a month. The thing is, salaries for engineering talent is just really low in London.

[the_only_law]

I saw a ad for a job at an HFT the other day claiming it paid $850k a year, not sure if that was base of TC though.

From what I hear though, interviews are hell, worse than FAANG or any tech companies and probably extremely competitive.

[barry-cotter]

The lowest pay recorded for Google in London is $124,000, for L3, new grad. The lowest for L4, which you would surely get as an experienced hire, is $155,000. You get paid roughly as much as the lowest paid permanent fulltime staff at Google.

https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&s...

[deadmutex]

A couple of other notes:

Finance non-competes seem to be MUCH more restrictive than tech. Also, you have to average 5-year comps... because Finance pay can be very volatile. Also, in tech, many more companies try to filter out non-team players during interviews.