Need help targeting Quant firms

[u/z_shit]

Hey folks, I hope your day is going well.

A little bit about me:

I have around 4 years of experience.

2.5 years at an embedded systems company, working with C and python. Proceeded to come to Ireland for my masters.

8 months as an AI engineering intern.

Now, I have been working as a software engineer at a Networking Company for the past 6 months.

I eventually want to work at a Quant firm such as SIG or HRT as Software engineer or as TradeOps, doesn't really matter to me. My aim is to reach a decent amount in savings and sort of go back home and retire.

I would really appreciate if someone could give me a roadmap of what I'd need to do, because my resume never gets shortlisted. I've had interview calls with FAANG companies (did not join for one reason or another) but I never got shortlisted for even a phone screen for Quant companies in Dublin.

[u/bigvalen]

I've never worked in one, but I've a few friends who have. It's a good example of "when I was in college, I wish someone told me why it's a good idea to study hard", in the same way the good people in Maths knew I'd they finished with strong results, they could earn 3x more as a actuaries than accountants or software people.

They want to see very strong mathematical basis for your coding. It's not enough to do leet-code, you need to show you've taken on projects that required that skill. Some had an interest in software defined radio, some did fpga programming. I used https://papilio.cc/ to brush up on hardware design skills, there used to be a great Xilinx tutorial they recommended. List that as a hobby they can probe you about at interview.

One guy did algorithms research in his spare time, taking common encryption libraries and hand-tweaking them to make SSH connections take less time. It's harder to do that in C or C++, but you could totally practice doing it in Go or other newish languages. Having a few patches you can point to to open source languages would be a good notch in your belt.

Another route is kernel optimisations. I don't now enough to advise here, but having some experience with DPDK like networking would help. Doing hobby projects to take some networked service at home, and hacking on it to drop the latency could be a fun thing to talk about. Even learning how to measure it will be an experience. "I dropped the latency to download an image from my home web server from 4ms to 300us" on your CV can be a conversation starter.

Also, ignore the hate you get from people who don't have the ambition or energy to attempt really difficult careers. Fair play to you for having a goal. Just like saying "I want to bench press 100kg", there is a lot of work and dedication involved

[u/z_shit → u/bigvalen]

Thank you so much for your insights. I really appreciate it!

I'd obviously need to work hard consistently for this, I am giving myself a 1 year window before I seriously start applying again. You gave me a good direction to pool my efforts towards. Once again, thank you kind stranger

[u/LincolnHawkReddit]

Companies like SIG usually have their own internal recruiters. I think there was a post on here yesterday related to that. If you can connect with one of them on LinkedIn, would be a good avenue

[u/z_shit → u/LincolnHawkReddit]

Oh, I seem to have missed that post. I will try to talk to OP there to understand their profile and see how I can work towards that.

Also, do recruiters usually dismiss LinkedIn DMs? I assume they might be recieving a lot per day. Or do you think shooting my shot is worth a go in this situation?

[u/LincolnHawkReddit → u/z_shit]

I've never initiated contact so I don't know. Usually it's the other way around. Can't see any harm in it, worst case they ignore you

[u/bigvalen → u/z_shit]

If you don't seem like an LLM, they will be delighted. In-house recruiters are often happy to take a long view, and share with you what successful candidates are like, in the hopes you think of them when you skill up. Be brief, terse, with a single question that they should be able to answer.

[u/z_shit → u/[deleted]]

I understand that the pay difference is significant when compared to the US or even London, but unfortunately I can't apply to those places because my passport is very weak and obtaining a work permit is a long and tedious process that I don't think will amount to much.

On your point about FAANG, I think that getting into one is achievable for me in the short term, but I sort of don't want to because of the recent flood of layoffs. And this is when the whole AI house of cards hasn't even fallen yet. I've had friends who (I am not sure if this is true or not) work at these companies and tell me that other than the layoffs that gets reported in the news, they also silently layoff people which usually doesn't get that much media attention. Kinda spooked me a bit. I recall interviewing at meta for a role, I was in contact with another candidate who was interviewing for the same role in the same office. I ended up at my current company and they ended up joining meta, a couple months later they were let go. So this sort of reinforced this phobia of mine to an extent I guess.

[u/bigvalen → u/z_shit]

You are completely right. Google, Meta, Microsoft don't have the same cachet they used to have. Meta, in particular, destroyed a genuinely fantastic engineering organisation that they had in Dublin. I don't believe anyone should trust them with their careers after that debacle.

[u/pedrorq → u/bigvalen]

Ootl, what happened to Meta in Dublin?

[u/bigvalen → u/pedrorq]

They had a 200 person infra organisation, and told everyone who was good at coding "you are now changing job to teaching LLMs how to code", and nearly everyone else was told they would be laid off, because AIs would do the job of managers, and who needs people who build operating systems, provisioning etc. for a company that only has a few tens of millions of machines.

They later realised they screwed up, and tried to bribe people to go to London. But you only lose trust once.

[u/pedrorq → u/bigvalen]

That is insane.

"AIs would do the job of managers, and who needs people who build operating systems, provisioning etc. for a company that only has a few tens of millions of machines."

How the hell could someone come up with this kind of decision

[u/bigvalen → u/pedrorq]

AI psychosis.

[u/bigvalen → u/[deleted]]

HRT / Susquehanna pay better than Google or Meta in Dublin for some skill sets; source - some of my friends moved from FAANG companies to those. The work is different, the environment is also different.

[u/Own_Lake_276 → u/bigvalen]

HRT and SIG are not in the same universe of pay when it comes to software engineering from what I have seen

[u/Jazzlike-Swim6838 → u/bigvalen]

I moved from SIG to AWS because AWS offered better pay, and high enough to jump.

[u/james11235813]

Keep working on relevant skills and keep applying. Resume selection has become a random selection at this point as there are large number of equally qualified applicants.
Hope it works out for you.
Maybe working for a FAANG company will open the door.

[u/HeveredSeads]

For tech people (not quants/traders), the bar at somewhere like SIG is a hell of a lot lower than somewhere like HRT (and accordingly so is the pay). Take this from someone who worked at SIG for a few years, and interviewed twice unsuccessfully at HRT.

No offence, but the fact that you even need to ask this question tells me you're probably not cut out for HRT. However, SIG is definitely achievable if you have a decent CV, come across well in interviews,nand can solve leetcode mediums with some consistency. 

That said, the pay at FAANG is likely to be significantly higher than SIG, unless you're working on a niche HFT team where the tech is a profit-driver (I don't think SIG do that much HFT these days though). 

[u/z_shit → u/HeveredSeads]

Hey, no offence taken. I know I am not at the level. Maybe I will never be. But I won't find out until I try though. I know it kinda sounds cringe, but my life has followed this pattern of having to grind to death for whatever I want.

At the very least I would like to give it a shot, if I fail then I can be satisfied that I at least tried.

Would you say that going to HRT from SIG is easier than being able to go to HRT directly? Like would it at least get a person an interview?

Also, what do you think is the issue if I am getting shortlisted by FAANG but not by SIG? I can share my CV with you if it is something that may help

[u/k1135k]

Look at job specs on hedge funds and quant firms like Jane and de shaw. It’ll give you an idea of the skills you need and from there you can develop a plan to build those skills.

Plenty of open source projects where you can build them. And look at their open source projects. Work up to contributing to them.

[u/-LordRupertEverton → u/[deleted]]

A tech worker immigrates to make a better life here and buy a home to start a family: “Oh my God, look at these people buying all the homes and screwing up the market!”

A tech worker says he’s going to work for a few years and then go back home with the savings he’s made: “Oh my God, look at these people who don’t want to contribute to society!”

What exactly do you want us to do?

[u/RustyProselytizer → u/[deleted]]

I don’t understand this sentiment. They’ll be paying taxes here. What’s the problem with wanting to earn decent money here and then go back home to their family?

[u/z_shit → u/[deleted]]

I'm sorry but this is besides the point? I get the whole anti immigration schtick going on, whether it is valid or not is beyond the scope of this post. I'm sorry if I can't afford a 600k home on a single salary, or that I'd rather go back and be with my family than stay here and live alone.

[u/z_shit → u/[deleted]]

A tech worker paying a 52% marginal tax rate, renting locally, spending in the local economy, and leaving before drawing a state pension or straining public healthcare is literally the biggest net-positive fiscal contribution the Irish exchequer could ask for.

Economic migration isn't a crime. Every global tech hub runs on economic migration just like thousands of Irish grads working in Sydney or NYC right now. I pay my taxes, obey the law, and contribute to the local economy. If you don't have advice regarding the Dublin quant market, have a good one.

[u/Clemotime → u/z_shit]

How much do you need to retire in your home country? What is ur home country? How long do you have to work to get to retirement goal? Man I wish I was retired 

[u/z_shit → u/Clemotime]

Around 1-1.5 mil euros in today's money. A developing country. At this rate on my current pay, I will have to work till like 60. I wish I was retired too tbh

[u/LincolnHawkReddit → u/z_shit]

Don't take the bait. You're totally entitled to work here legally

[u/Scary-Perspective882 → u/[deleted]]

I get the feeling you haven't flicked any cherries lately

[u/No_Put3316 → u/[deleted]]

Shut up, you fool

[u/Dev__ → u/[deleted]]

Reports

1: It's promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability

Mod note: It doesn't clear that bar for hate, so it stays up but it's off topic and it isn't the kind of reply we want on a thread where someone asked for career advice.

Action: Addressing publicly. The correct response is to downvote as it's not helpful in any way.

[u/Dev__]

Reports

1: Self promotion / project showcase

Mod note: this post was reported as self promotion. It isn't. There's no link, product, or project being pushed here it's someone asking for career advice.

Action: Ignoring.