[delta_p_delta_x]

I'm quite salty about HFTs. I'm a final-year undergraduate with a bunch of close friends who all love C++ (yes, we're masochistic that way). They're all really smart, too (me, not so much—my GPA is 3.00/5). However, after a while, it got really dull and frankly, a bit exasperating when all the rest of them could discuss were HFTs, their ridiculous, outrageous salaries, matching engines, order books, and low-latency trading. Heck, one of our assignments last year was to write such an engine in C++. It seems C++ developers are particularly in demand at most HFTs.

Some of these companies I have never even heard of before having entered CS—Jane Street, Citadel, HRT, DRW, Ansatz, Two Sigma... Their names and websites are cryptic, and their job position listings are even more so, unless one knows that they're mostly proprietary traders—in other words, making money for money's own sake.

It feels dirty and excessively capitalist—these companies don't even have products to show for all their effort. Any clients they do have probably already make millions to billions, too.

My friends defend themselves by saying 'HFTs make money by keeping the market liquid', 'there's nothing wrong with arbitrage', etc. That's fair, but I still feel that's just sugar-coating what I said.

At the same time, I don't really say anything in person to my friends, because, well, they're friends, and secondly, my lousy grades make me feel thoroughly unqualified to make any sort of criticism.

I personally would rather do embedded, automotive, avionics, or game engine development. I just wish I had someone to discuss this with. Hardly anyone I know wants to do these instead, because the salary is lousy to above average, the hours are as bad, and especially game development is considered a mostly rubbish job to have. It really sucks, because I've gamed all my life and always found video games pretty damn amazing, both technically and just in general. It was a pretty bad bubble-bursting moment when I discovered just how bad the game dev situation was—overwork, crunch, sexual abuse and sexism, bean-counter-led design and marketing decisions.

I'm not looking for 100% job satisfaction (I accept even the most exciting work will have its dull periods), but it would be nice if the thing I spent 8-10 hours a day doing for a salary was something that remotely excited me and others, instead of just mindlessly piping money from X to Y and back just because it paid half a million a year.

[Game_Ender]

If you want a good salary with impact and embedded/high performance C++ look into the self driving field. Check companies like “Cruise” and “Waymo” and see levels.fyi. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but it is making the future vs simply manipulating the finical system.

[delta_p_delta_x]

Thanks for the recommendations. I've applied to more traditional auto firms (BMW, VW, Mercedes, Volvo), and hadn't really considered the newer ones. Cruise looks particularly interesting.

[rr888]

> 'HFTs make money by keeping the market liquid'

Ironically they only really keep the market liquid when the sun in shining. When there is a big crash and you really need liquidity most HFTs disappear.

They have put a lot of highly paid human traders out of business though which is something. The C++ devs might be earning a lot but its less than their predecessors.

[slymon99]

Do you have any evidence for this, empirically? I mean yes, HFTs aren't going to let their orders sit stale when FOMC announces a giant rate hike, they aren't going to lose a bunch of money to keep the market healthy. But generally when vol is high, liquidity is at a premium, so I would imagine HFTs become a higher percentage of the market (though spreads are still going to be wider).

[rr888]

Yeah these HFTs aren't big companies, they buy and sell stocks quickly. After the 87 crash big banks could buy billions of dollars of stocks and bonds because banks are huge and could do this to both protect the market, their customers and make money.

[caddemon]

Most people I've met that actually got jobs at top HFTs were quite curious about a lot of topics in school (and still are with extra time they have). I'm surprised your friends are so fixated on HFTs while there are so many interesting and/or fun other things to spend time on when undergrad on campus.

A lot of HFTs have their own training programs anyway for the job specific knowledge, so it is more important to build up the right base math and/or dev background than to hyper fixate on HFTs all of undergrad, even if your end career goal is to make bank.

[_dain_]

>Most people I've met that actually got jobs at top HFTs were quite curious about a lot of topics in school (and still are with extra time they have).

yeah and that's the worst part, they take the brightest minds of the generation and have them working on moving money around instead of building fusion rockets

[caddemon]

Tbf many of them were pretty jaded/burnt out by trying to do academic research before fully taking the plunge. I'm sure there are smart people drawn by the money right out of the gate, but other fields have also done a really good job of driving people away.

[delta_p_delta_x]

> I'm surprised your friends are so fixated on HFTs while there are so many interesting and/or fun other things to spend time on when undergrad on campus

Many of them were or are interested in other things like compilers, home-labbing; a couple of them game, too. It's just that because we're about to graduate, job offers dominate the conversation, and HFT jobs dominate that conversation.

[caddemon]

Fair enough, the time around graduation can be pretty stressful for everyone!