olofraf in 
Data Analyst 2 months ago
Difficulty of SWE interviews
I was wondering if anyone has any insight on the difficulty of SWE interviews at top HF/trading firms as compared to tech. Would you say interviews at Citadel, Jane Street, Two Sigma, HRT, IMC, Optiver, SIG are significantly harder than FAANMG or other high comp tech like Uber, Lyft, Stripe, Square etc?
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bearcatanthonySoftware Engineer 2 months ago
Andy do you work or have ever worked at an HFT firm or a bank that has a HFT department? If so can you please state which one? I have worked at in HFT since 2008 at various firms.
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1. HF uses old tech because they cannot afford deploying financial applications on the latest software builds like JAVA or . Net or python or anything.
2. HF focuses on clients and not technologies. U will have less exposure to latest tech .
3. HF are more driven by financial business analysts and not tech people.
4. If u are pure tech, HF is not a good place IMHO as u second important team after business knowledge people.
5. Most of the time the growth will depend on ur financial industry knowledge. Which I personally dont kike it.
6. Tech companies have a very higher pay as compared to HF. So choose wisely.
7. Most HF dont allow trading, so u will not be able to take advantage of ur financial knowledge anyways.
8. In CAP theorem.
HF work on Consistency+ performance.
Tech firms work on Perfomance+ availability.
Final thought.. IMO.. HF is a good place to work. I would prefer a tech firm if u are a pure techie guy. New tech, tech oriented, past paced, updated industry, good pay and better future growth