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by dhyasama 5062 days ago
My first job out of college was at a small HFT firm. The night before rolling out my first changes is forever imprinted in my memory. Lots of tossing and turning and images of exactly this kind of disaster.
1 comments

How did its testing/security practices measure up to other places you've worked? I understand that the tech division of a financial firms might be top notch, but the culture of the moneymaking dept. may mismanage them.
SEC/FINRA have required practices. The risk controls have to be firewalled from the trading desks precisely so that this type of blowup is contained.
Is that new? Back then it was two devs and two traders in a room. See a problem? Press the big red button. Deploy change. Press the big green button. Cowboy style. I STRONGLY recommend against doing it this way. I was young and stupid and I'm pretty sure it took years off my life.
The issue regards naked access. At that time the broker had requirements. Now that two-dev shop has to worry about risk etc.