RE: Career advice - High Frequency Trading network engineer

I can answer you on that - I have done both -

The Blue Pill

An investment bank is often a very slow job, staged configs by different teams, pigeon holing (only being allowed to work on singular repetitive tasks) and lots of political infighting... At a big bank, you'll be underpaid, under challenged and often, find you are quite replaceable when Dell or HP get's the contract to outsource your job. There will be MANY middle managers who can't do you job, don't understand your job - but LOVE to leave at 4pm and take all the credit the next day when you stayed until 11pm for a change over. There will be people that you will KNOW can NEVER EVER EVER have the job they have ANYWHERE else. You will find things like 4 weeks of meetings to change a firewall rule, 3 weeks of meetings to change a catalyst line card - and all along - you'll be forced to explain to people in meetings who again REALLY DON'T CARE about the technology and are NOT passionate about it - but will go out of their way to hammer you with stupid questions - just to make th!
 emselves look smart.... they will make snarky comments about "all those letters after your name" and "well, anyone can get certified, it doesn't mean they have experience" (but have NOT one single certification themselves). I can't think of one big bank I have worked at or interviewed at where there was not at least 50% of the people (managers, directors) that could and SHOULD be cut and anyone would ever notice they were not there. they offered and did NOTHING. Remember, this is an industry which through its own MISMANAGEMENT had to be bailed out at taxpayer expense... sounds like fun?

However, I offer you the red pill...

As an HFT network engineer, I'm constantly challenged to do more with less - HFT shops are very LEAN, we don't have any fat - we can't afford it. We get all the greatest equipment - we just have to make it work really well. We work very closely with some of the smartest people anywhere - quantitative analysts, programmers and traders - we are VERY appreciated - they are very proud of us as we are of them. We learn things like fpga's, linux scripts and automation, solarflare and dozens of other technologies other than basic "route and switch". We have to do things with Multicast and Market Data to get feeds from many different sources to the trading systems as "fast as possible". We do meetings with vendors who just came to market and are asked by our traders to make and prove critical decisions and come up with challenging test plans for new potential equipment like 40gbe switches. This allows us to work with the VERY LATEST technologies and compare and contrast them to trad!
 itional approaches. We get "right into the action" and learn and see trading strategies and development - so we have to learn to keep secrets (BIGTIME). We can't even tell our wives or friends when, what or how our firm trades. You are given awesome levels of responsibility and often the pay is great. There are people I met in HFT I would say are uniquely passionate, creative and take so much pride in their work that I step up to an even higher level and take even more pride in mine. I have never experienced any bad people or lazy people in HFT. That's the best part of a lean, nimble company - we get to see each other work up close - and we know right away who should and should not be there.

If working for a big investment bank is getting to mow the grass at an NFL stadium - working for an HFT or prop shop is like being allowed to play Quarterback in the playoffs...

Thanks,

Joe
#19366

-----Original Message-----
From: nobody_at_groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody_at_groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of ccie2323
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2013 6:52 AM
To: ccielab_at_groupstudy.com
Subject: OT: Career advice - High Frequency Trading network engineer

Hi all,

Would like some thoughts on HFT project network engineer role, the role is for a investment bank mainly to build new network infrastructure for the organization. How is the role as compared to a investment bank campus project network engineer. Which role will give better experience and career advancement, i have more then 5 years of enterprise network engineer experience.

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Received on Sun Jan 13 2013 - 14:51:07 ART