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High-Frequency Programmers Revolt Over Pay
An anonymous reader writes "Programmers who design and code algorithms for investment banking are unhappy with their salaries. Many of them receive a low 6-figure salary whereas their bosses — who manipulate these algorithms and execute the trades — often earn millions. One such anonymous programmer points out that he was paid $150,000 per year, whereas the software he wrote was generating $100,000 per day."
So...if they think they're underpaid, go somewhere else...
It isn't that the programmers earn too little it's that their bosses earn too much.
History is so yesterday!
If you think you are underpaid, you have two options. Ask for more money and quit if you do not get it, or quit.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
If you are so unhappy with your current salary, then quit and stop letting your boss milk you for money. Use your coding knowledge to make the coin for yourself.
If I coded something that made $100,000 a day while only getting paid $150,000 a year... well I'm sure any coder worth their salt can figure out that math....
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but the programmer in question agreed to the terms BEFORE he wrote the first line of code.
Shouldn't gripes like these come up before you begin working? Maybe this is part of the problem, non?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Sounds like somebody should change careers!
Would you like some waaaaaaaaaaaaaasabi to go with that burger?
Living With a Nerd
fortunately, only our dogs could hear the revolt!
I write software that sells for millions and make $80k/yr. Where is my commission?!
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
If he's being given the algorithm and codifying it, he deserves a small part of the profits. Put another way, if he said screw it and left, how much would he be able to make? Does he know how to interact with a trading API, or how to actually make good trades?
Perhaps that anonymous programmer worked on the Nintendo DS. It does print money, after all.
Why don't they use their own programs to trade and make the big bucks then?
If it's not that easy to turn 'their' code into flowing rivers of cash, why don't they STFU and either do the job they're being paid to do, or decide that it isn't worth it and do something else??
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
Change jobs and stop complaining.
No wonder the one developer kept anonymous. Paid only $150k a year... Where did I put that little violin again? Get real!
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
dancingmilk has it right...the folks earning the big bucks put more at risk than a little time in front of a computer.
"One such anonymous programmer points out that he was paid $150,000 per year, whereas the software he wrote was generating $100,000 per day."
And if said software screws up and costs a few hundred million, or otherwise causes other "bad things" to happen, what's the accountability of the programmer or the manager?
He can have mine, where he'll write code that helps save lives everyday, for less than six figures.
Did you read the article? No, of course you didn't. That's what they're doing.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
If it is only the software generating $100,000 per day, why did he write it for them as opposed to just writing it for himself? Is it beyond the realm of possibility that these highly paid co-workers are actually adding some value?
How can the guy survive on 150K a year? I bet he had to settle for a little cuddy instead of getting the large custom houseboat. Cry me a river.
--fatboy
they point out that they get paid only $10,000 a year, whereas the coal
they mine produces $100,000,000 a year in electricity revenues.
-paul
NEVER enough, for some people...
Just tweak your code to forward all fractional cents to you. It's so easy even Richard Pryor can do it!
FTFA:
"Now some programmers feel used and are instigating a revolt.
They are doing so by striking out on their own or forming profit-sharing arrangements."
That's hardly "whining," in fact it's precisely what they ought to do.
The outstanding part is that Forbes is recognizing this. We all know that folks in IT are underpaid in many professions, but the proof is when people actually say "fuck you" and go work elsewhere. That will *force* salaries up to the real market rate. And when publications like Forbes notice this, it's harder for managers to pretend it's not happening.
Thank you, to the ladies and gentlemen who struck out on their own, and thank you to Forbes for noticing. Both of these will make life a little better for the rest of us.
I think that something really important to remember in all this is they live in NY. You pretty much have to divide their salary by half to get an equivalent salary anywhere else in the US.
Even with that in mind, I think the real problem isn't that the programmers should make more, it is that the traders should make LESS. Whining about not being able to take advantage of rigging the game to funnel money to yourself like your superiors do shouldn't get you any sympathy.
The programmers are revolting...
You said it; they stink on ice.
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.
A counter-point to all of the hate.
a. The American Dream (tm) says that if you work hard, you will benefit in the end. High risk / effort jobs should pay well
b. I bet these guys signed some sort of non-compete contract. Let's say that you and your buddies are the golden boys of financial trading algorithms. I think that you should get pay increases if your company is doing well. A 20% pay increase would probably shut them up.
c. After actually scanning the article,
Computer jockeys setting up own shops in bids to make millions.
[...]
They are doing so by striking out on their own or forming profit-sharing arrangements. Jeffrey Gomberg, 32, worked for a trading firm that paid him a low-six-figure income after four years on the job. His trader colleagues, by contrast, made millions manipulating the algorithms he'd written.
[...]
The programmer's bosses offered him an office and a $45,000 raise, but he left instead. He found a partner, and together they began trading on their own. The programmer now pockets more than half of any profits his software generates. The programmer says he's making about the same money he did at the job he left. But at his old job he'd topped out in pay while now he says the sky's the limit.
“I'm on my way to making a ton,” he says
It seems that they did the right thing. Why are all of you complaining? They didn't like their job, they grew a pair of balls and went out on their own.
It's amazing what reading TFA can let you know.
"Many of them receive a low 6-figure salary whereas their bosses — who manipulate these algorithms and execute the trades — often earn millions."
A Nascar Driver's pit crew recieve a low 5-figure salary while their bosses - who use the cars to win races - often earn millions.
I get why the programmers are disgruntled, the code they write makes a lot of money and they aren't getting a huge cut, but it seems like the algorithm the program is based on would be the most important aspect. Besides, $100,000 a year doesn't seem that bad to me.
Sent from my iPhone 5
Everyone is paid less than their worth. That's why people would form unions before they were stupefied by tv and the false hope that they would rise to the exploitative class. The fact that people are now paid less than 1/100th their worth isn't surprising but it is pathetic.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Just because you design and code systems that others can make millions from, it doesn't automatically mean that you're being underpaid. Is it your software, or the way that it's used that is adding the real value?
If I wrote software that helped someone to write a bestseller, should I complain if they made a fortune and I didn't? If I'd invented and written a "story generator" that took a few bits of input from a user and spat out a great novel, then yes I would be annoyed (although I'd presumably just create a book myself). But if all I did was create another standard word processor, or even if I'd coded the story generator based on someone else's algorithms, then no I wouldn't.
The waaaambulance is on it's way, but the bridge over the Crymeafuckin river is out!!! It won't get here in time!!!
Anyone who doesn't like the conditions of their job, whether it be pay or whatever, always has the right to quit (at least in this country). So if you think you can do better elsewhere, go for it. If you are proven wrong, scuttle back into a job working for the man while looking for the next opportunity to break free again. Sooner or later: profit! :-(
The difference between winners and losers is that everyone loses, winners merely shake off defeat and try again.
My friend started 3 companies. The first 2 failed. He went back to working for someone else each time. The third one was a success. He eventually sold his share in the company for (I'm guessing) $40M. He retired before he reached 40.
I'm still trying
[i]"Wwaaaa...I only make 150K a year...waaaa"[/i]
Cry me a river...
With the US hitting double digit unemployment I would bet there are a few people who would be happy to do that coding for HALF of what he is making.
I have to return some videotapes...
just because someone has found a novel way to make a lot of money without a lot of work does not entitle everyone in the production chain an even share.
The intended theory is that people earn money based on the worth of the goods or services they produce multiplied by the rarity of the skills required. The (relatively) small amount of work being done to earn that $100k/day does not mean the work is worth $100k/day, it just means that there is something to be taken advantage of causing a disproportionally high return.
If I write code for two days, of relatively equal quality and complexity, and sell each day's code to two different people, and one of them uses it to make $1000 and one of them uses it to make $100,000, it doesn't necessarily mean I should get paid 100x as much for the second job. It means the second guy has found a much more lucrative way to use my code to produce a profit. Now this does usually mean I'll get paid more, but to expect 100x the pay is just unreasonable. That excess money isn't for my brilliance on day 2, it's for the guy that found a way to sell my sand for its weight in gold.
These people that are crying about their "low pay" would be dancing in the streets if their bosses were actually making less than they were, doing the same thing. It all comes back to basic Greed... "He's getting more money than I am, so I must be entitled to some of it." No, not really.
Maybe instead of complaining about they pay, you should try to do your employer's job, since that's obviously where the profit margin you're looking for is at? Oh that's right, you can't DO that, can you? So they obviously have a skill you do not. Maybe that's why they're taking home more money than you? See, that's how life works.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Considering the unashamed nature of the greed in investment banking, this is not at all surprising. The whole point is to hoard as much as you can for yourself and limit your losses on every front possible. While essential, programmer salaries are nothing but an expense to be limited as much as possible. If you expected altruism or fair play, you're in the wrong industry.
That said, if you want to experience unfair salaries, try being a sysadmin/programmer in an academic setting. Oh, your salary is only in the low six figure range? Whiners.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
It annoys me like hell that people use this kind of arguments.
Maybe they are excellent programmers, but bad business men. It doesn't mean they deserve to have their blood sucked from them.
If you shift all the income from the workers to the managers, everybody will want to make business, and there'll be nobody left to do some work.
I'm not arguing that Wall Street salaries are reasonable, far from it, but the comparison is not so simple. The reason the programmers make what they make is based on a value comparison of their skills and knowledge with others in their field, and what it might cost to retain (or replace with someone possessing similar abilitites) were they to walk. The reason Wall Street traders make what they make is based on a different skill set (and probably connections, too) and is probably more closely tied more directly to the amount of profit they can generate. The fact they are using a tool created by somebody else is not a huge factor. If the programmers are truly behind the *design* of the algorithms rather than just the coding/implementation, then they definitely should share heavily in the profits. But I suspect it's not so simple as mashing a button and sitting back and watching the profit counter start incrementing. The people who make footballs for the NFL probably make $40,000 a year. The players who use them make millions.
Capitalism in action!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm not an electronic trader but I do work in a data-intensive tech job on Wall Street. And the above mindset is very common - that business guys are super smart and everyone else is a glorified office assistant. All of the senior managers at my company have MBA's and give only minor thanks to the computer scientists and statisticians that keep them employed. My supervisor only has a vague idea of the data and that's only because I keep him informed. Without me the guy would be completely lost. The techies definitely don't get much respect.
Yes, and I am the IT Manager who makes sure that the bankers and analysts have the hardware, software and comms tools to do their jobs. Right down the corridor is Michael's room - he's our maintenance guy - if he didn't empty my bin, keep the area tidy and make sure the lights stay on...
AT&ROFLMAO
Those programmers and those brokers are doing nothing of worth to society. They are just playing games with currency. If our government wasn't in complete collusion with Wall Street, millisecond trading would be illegal. The issue isn't that the programmers aren't making enough money, it's that their jobs and the jobs of their bosses should not even exist.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Let them start their own investment bank company. In other words - fully take on the risks and the profit.
OK Slashdot. I will play ball. Here is the comment you are looking for with the posting of this article. "This isnt fair! If you think about it, the programmers really make the money, I mean really! Its sooo stupid that the guy that uses the program makes so much more money! Its not right. IANAC, but as Marx said...."
are lucky to even get paid these days. If I were netting $150,000 a year and were unhappy about it, I'd save up and open up a business (luckily, there's plenty of stuff to be getting on with around the World - and people to PAY for the stuff, according to the article). I'm just saying - be your own boss...
Back to work...
Given up the sigs
these guys are horrible people. Making a 6-figure salary (especially in this economy) is amazing. I understand that their software makes tons of money, but how can they complain about a 6-figure salary when there most people never make 100,000 in there entire life in so much of the world?!?!!
Make high speed trading illegal. Each individual trade needs to be human initiated. Solves both this little problem, and the much larger "Big Evil Bank" problem.
in june of 2010, the US unemployment rate was 9.5 percent. Be glad you aren't giving 50 cent blowjobs just to get a hot meal in your stomach. Make do like the rest of us and quitcherbitchin.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Wow! It's amazing what you learn when you actually read the article. I should do it more often.
These guys are not whining about the situation, they are actively taking measures to fix it.
Programmers who can write a halfway decent market prediction algorithm are being churned out by universities all over the world in astounding numbers. Investors with the available funds to make use of those algorithms, not so much. I'd say a six figure salary for a programmer is pretty good considering how many out there are unemployed right now.
mmmm...forbidden donut
They are welcome to swap jobs with me. I'd be more that happy with $150,000 a year.
Currently, I'm unemployed. I've written a Google Android app and uploaded it to the Market. I'm not in a country where I can charge for my app, so I have ads in it to try to generate some revenue. The app has been on the market place for 17 days so far, and I've made $2.65. That equates to about 15.5c/day, or $56.90 a year. I had to pay $25 to create my account, so that makes it $31.90 for the year!
So only too happy to swap, guys.
(for those interested, the app is on the market here: market://details?id=org.thetomahawk.spreadsheet )
I work in the field of Computation Electromagnetics and my code is an integral part of the leading high frequency electromagnetic analysis. So far none of my staff who report to me have revolted about their pay. The same goes for my fellow managers. So I was very happy to see the headline. It must be our competitor who is having such problems and employee morale. I was just about to call our HR to launch a poaching operation to peel off the last couple of good programmers they still have (I am still after you Sanjay and X'iang). Then I see it is an entirely different meaning of the word "High Frequency Programmers".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I work 55 hours per week as a developer and pull in $95,000/yr. Last year, I took a pay cut because the poor economy had driven down salaries and the company decided to take advantage of the lack of competition. I have trouble feeling sorry for these people making $150,000/yr for 40 hours of work. Sure, the managers shouldn't be making millions, but I'll be happy to give these managers my contact information so they can call me when their "disgruntled" employees quit. This example continues to show how the people on Wall Street have absolutely no clue about how most people live their lives.
O.K., they're not starving or nearly, but it's kind of appalling to see people mocked so mercilessly merely for raising a fuss over what they consider ill-treatment.:
In a market system, you get paid as much as you can swing. Some of that is conditioned by how much value you add---not as a direct factor, but it goes into the Mgt's calculation of how little they can get by with paying you, at least via the question of how much they would lose if you should leave...so making a point of how valuable you are to them makes a lot of sense.
A lot of that, I believe, has to do with basic, primate, dominance and threat displays (much like comments on the web, including this one, probably). So whinging and talking big and making threatening noises can all be part of what can move you toward your optimal...."can be", no guaranties, but why mock it?...unless you're trying to move the curve in the bosses' favour.
So complaints can help you; so can solidarity within groups. You don't have to join Ken Macleod's book's I.W.W.W.W.W. (the 'Webblies') but I think the habit of mind which has less sympathy for the people like you than the people more likely to boss you around is a bad one, and leads to conditions in which you're more likely to be under-paid. Even though the market has no concept of 'deserve' or 'fairness' except to the extent that its participants' choices are influenced by such, _you_ probably do, due to Our Glorious Primate Heritage...if you think it it 'right' that you should be paid more, my guess is that you'll come out better than if you just acknowledge that you _want_ to be paid more---it shouldn't matter, but it does, and the market cares a lot more about what is than what should be (except to the extent &c.).
And you really think the colleagues using the software were footing the bill? Bullshit. It's about time developers stood up and demanded compensation for their inventions instead of letting idiot stock traders reap the rewards by pushing a few buttons.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Ya know what you should do? You should make the software round down the dollar amounts 'n put the extra pennies in a savings account that ya can siphon off. Think I saw that in a movie once.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
That's because you act like battered spouses. They treat you like shit and what do you do? You stay. Why SHOULD they respect you when you take their crap and ask for more?
Grow a pair and fuck 'em by leaving.
I work for a company where my programming efforts generate multiples of my salary in revenues too. Isn't that the point? To produce a substantial return on investment? Sure the bosses are probably overpaid for what they do, but these developers sound like whiners with no clue as to why it is their respective companies hire programmers: to make the company money!
Investment banking does not "generate" money.
If you're feeling generous, you could say it "wins" money, like a gambler might.
Otherwise, say it "scalps" money.
But no, high-frequency trading does not "generate" money.
I was a programmer for one of the companies mentioned in TFA; you've heard of them. The algorithms they're talking about are not really developed by the programmers, they're typically invented by the phalanx of PhD mathematicians the company also employs; the programmer's job is to implement it in the most efficient way possible.
Day one I was handed a paper on Eigen-related trading, straight out of TeX and was told to implement it. I admit that I had to go to the bookstore at lunch just to figure out what some of the symbols were. What I had two weeks later was a working version in C++ that did the job; over the course of a few months I refactored and refactored it to run faster; no object copying (everything using references), bit shifting, you name it, I used it. The code was tight and ran fast; as far as I know it's still being used.
I see it more as being a waiter; you may be the "face" of the restaurant, delivering the meal, but your tips also go back to the cooks, busboys, etc. I helped out on another project where, to this day, I *still* don't get how it works, yet the code too runs fast and correctly, as far as I know.
It should also be noted that the pay might be good, but the life is horrible; if you're young and single it's definitely something to go for, but save your money because there will come a time when you just can't do 100 hour weeks, week after week after week for years and years.
The only memory I really have of my 20s and early 30s is the glow of a screen.
Quit your job. Write your own program that generates 100k per day. Why do you need that investment banker anyway? Oh... Capital to invest in the market to make the 100k per day.
And have worked in financial firms for over ten years. It's not really by choice, and honestly I'd love to get out, but at this point in time the economy isn't exactly what I'd call "stable" to do it. I have been looking.
But to the article's point... the software programmers write in financial firms are designed to ensure that if certain thresholds are met, that trades are automatically executed. There's a buy limit, a sell limit, and the task of the trader is really to find out where they want to put the money.
The funny thing about it, is that these traders could put basically any company in there (any company of reasonable value and had reasonable research on it) and the software would mitigate the risks. Those algorithms aren't spread out around a bunch of programmers, they are usually in the hands of a few -- and for good reason. Any idiot off the street could put their cash into these systems and have the software mitigate all the risks for them, executing the trades automatically.
Strangely enough, the average return to investors for a mutual fund, is actually less than the S&P 500 return. At least, if you factor in fees, charges, and other miscellaneous charges. The idea that a Wall Street firm can do *that* much better than the market average is generally speaking, very difficult. They make a lot of money on plain old fees, and if they manage to get 1% higher return than the S&P (which involves using these types of algorithms) they can make big bucks doing that. The only time I've seen firms make well over the market is when there's "funny business" going on. You know, wrapping up bad mortgages and calling them AAA rated stuff.
Anyway, the point is twofold. First, what these programmers do is extremely valuable because traders can sit by all day long and trade, and then their trades are secured by this software. Basically, it's their job security. The fact that very few programmers are in the position of developing the trading systems for firms -- at least the algorithmic logic part of it -- means a lot more than if they were part of a team. Usually it's a team of one, or two at most. And for that, they should really be paid a huge premium because they have knowledge about stuff that's WAY beyond the normal bounds of solving logical problems in programming, but requires really high level math, prediction systems, and even intelligence systems to scan news articles and trade accordingly.
That said... do yourselves a favor. If you have money in a financial firm -- take it out and invest it on your own. If you invest in a big index fund, there are very little fees, and you'll basically never do worse than the market. You don't have to take my word for it -- find a bunch of mutual funds that you like, and then peg them against the S&P or the DOW. You'll find that over time, the returns aren't that far off -- and if you cut out the fees you're paying, you will probably wind up ahead. And to boot, you can be happy in the knowledge that you're not supporting these firms take away our economy from us for the sake of a couple of bucks.
All in all, keep this in mind -- bonuses in Wall Street firms are paid on a yearly basis. There is no such thing as a long term outlook, so if traders or managers want to make a quick buck at the expense of everybody else -- they will do it. It's why I'm looking to get out of finance firms myself, because I find it distasteful to work in them, but I am not going to be stupid and 'jump' when there's nowhere to go.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
... buys you a middle class -- and I don't mean upper middle class -- lifestyle; esp. if you've got dependents to support as well. You can pull that nyc income and live in places where it goes a lot further, but you'll be commuting an hour or more (sometimes much more) to do so. After taxes, 100k there is roughly 65-70k take home (estimating broadly). In a place where a completely boring, typical one bedroom apartment goes for 1500/mo (outer boroughs) to 3000/mo (manhattan), monthly transit and commuter rail passes can set you back another 300/mo combined, and electricity is 3x as expensive as it is in the interior states, and groceries average 2x as expensive, that doesn't go very far.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
I think the real problem isn't that the programmers should make more, it is that the traders should make LESS
I don't know that I agree. I think this is a very subjective issue. The reality is, the amount of revenue derived partially from these programmers has absolutely nothing to do with what their compensation is or should be. By their rationale, every teller at a bank should have salaries commensurate with that bank's revenue, since they're an element in processing deposits/checks/payments/etc. Hell, the data center I run makes millions every hour, but I don't expect that I should make 7 or 8 figures because of it.
The lesson here is: negotiate well on the way in. Do your homework, find out what the job entails and what responsibilities/liabilities you will have and determine for yourself if the compensation being offered is worth it. Once you cut the deal, that's it. If you don't like it, you can do as the programmers in the article are doing, go somewhere else and try to negotiate a better deal. It ain't personal, it's business.
Probably the cost of entry into this type of business is so high that a programmer cannot afford to start his own company. If his salary would be higher, he might be able to start his own company, but of course his manager is aware of that...
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
And you really think the colleagues using the software were footing the bill? Bullshit. It's about time developers stood up and demanded compensation for their inventions instead of letting idiot stock traders reap the rewards by pushing a few buttons.
The stock traders make what they do because they know what buttons to push and when. If they push the wrong button at the wrong time, they stand to lose millions for their clients and themselves. These programs have no idea as to when to buy, sell or hold. All they do is retrieve data and analyze it into reports. It's up to the trader to know what to do with it.
If being an "idiot stock trader" who makes millions is so easy, why aren't you doing it? You can push a few buttons, right?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Exactly right. The value doesn't actually come from the algorithms, it comes from the position of the bank which gives it access to information before the rest of the market, allowing the big banks to (illegally? certainly unethically) skim money while essentially creating no new value for the marketplace. There are plenty of people who could write those programs, but only a few people in strategic positions can make sure the banks get the inside track to screw everyone else on earth. Hooray for deregulation!
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
He gets 150 000$ per year to write basically what is basically malware and complains ? I write nuclear reactor control/command and data acquisition software and get 25 000 euros. No, there's no zero missing, so fuck him.
Hi, you must be new to America. Here, money is more important than life, ethics, or anything else.
Palm trees and 8
I wouldn't accept this either. These high frequency trading algorithms serve no market purpose except fleecing the little guy. The fact that the algorithm is making so much money would make me sick too.
The entire lot of them should be unemployed.
--why?
Only on Slashdot can a $100,000-$150,000 salary be described as "[having] their blood sucked from them." Wow.
Many years ago I created fancy condenser units. I could easily create four or five a day and they sold for 5K each. I was payed about $10. per hour and creating $25,000 in product each day.
My point being that our economic system is slanted in such a way that those that actually create are often not paid much at all whereas those that create nothing often are very well paid. That attitude is beginning to trigger some real negatives. The car mechanic or tradesman now often has little conscience and is likely to cheat and do poor work to whatever degree he can get away with it while charging huge rates for his efforts.
His salary isn't too low, his manager(s) make too much! And they're not even producing anything useful. They're just manipulating financial instruments. How pathetic is that?
I used to write stockmarket software for a global supplier. Nice stuff, through this software ran billions a day, direct feed to the stockmarket-floor.
Now I work as a consultant for a consultancy firm, to get this contract they had a "fixed entermediate consultancy firm", who took 10% profit on my price just to put me into the company. (under their labels and what not)
So I filled in timesheets for my employers, the intermediate party and for the client. It wasn't very clear why I was filling in timesheets for the client as well, but it turned out my work was billed to their clients billing my work per hour with a factor of 2.5 on my price because they could.
This effectively resulted in me working hard, virtually for free, and generating profit for 4 companies (employer, intermediator, client, clients' client) while my pay was insulting for the work I've put out (under 8% of the cash my work generated).
If you want to keep your devs productive and happy, you should spoil them a bit and they'll put out. But I know alot with the same sentiments and effectively migrating to management hoping they'll make their big bucks, often resulting in incompetent management.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
And that is why there should be a 1 cent tax per transaction.
had i tried, i couldnt have put it better.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
How much a construction worker earns and for how much are buildings sold?
Where I live, I make the equivalent of USD 29.000 a year. It looks low, but it's really not bad around here. I have no idea how it is in New York, though. Maybe for a NY standard I'm below the poverty line.
But if the programmer makes N and his boss makes 10 times that by adding very little value, yes, the programmer is being blood-sucked.
Is this the same high frequency trading that involves beginning a series of transactions with a seller, and exploiting the "cancel" option, to determine the minimum price, then undertaking a similar process with a seller, to determine the maximum price, while paying the exchange to give them access to buyers and sellers before the general public?
If so, then this is really a story about how people who perform no service that has any value, are hiring software developers. the software developers are realizing that they are getting underpaid for the intrinsically dishonest scheme, and so they are leaving their original employers, and demanding more equitable deals from future employers, in exchange for the same dishonest practice.
It's sickening that the practice exists, and I don't care if the people who do the work are going to get a larger share of the unearned pie. they should be working for an industry that creates something of value. And if that industry doesn't exist; if the only jobs available are jobs leaching off the rest of society, then McDonald's is always hiring.
the real problem isn't that the programmers should make more, it is that the traders should make LESS.
Wow. I'm a total stranger, but can I decide what you make? On a whim? Seems you don't have a problem doing it for others.
I had a sucky sig.
It costs $20K/mo to get a box close enough to the market data to make reasonable high-frequency trades. The box itself costs about $10K. Everything else is sweat-equity. Put your $30K on the barrel and start making money. If you fail to recover your investment in the first month, you weren't as good as you thought. Try again next time. $30K is too high? Then get 6 guys together and pony up $5K. I don't see the what the complaint is here. Next thing they'll ask for is a union and profit-sharing. If you can't handle the heat, get out of the business. Programmers write code. You get paid for your time and experience. If you want your code to make money for you, then you are in the wrong business. Hire some programmers and start trading. -Hope
Is create a computer virus that takes fractions of a cent from each transaction and puts it in their bank account.
Absolutely nothing could go wrong with that fool proof plan.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Oh those poor fragile, precious little babies! How could their mean hearted employers do that to them?
Fuckers. I would absolutely love to make something in the low six figures. I'm an ASP.NET web dev earning something in the low 60s. I've been in the industry for 10 years and this is the best pay I've made in my life.
Technoli
Not a single highly rated post to point out that high-frequency trading is basically abusing the stock market? Overloading trade queues and then aborting if the trade isn't in their favor. Which, basically jams another middleman between the market and your trade, causes your 401(k) to earn less, etc etc. Their only purpose is to siphon money a fraction at a time many times in a way the you will never have access to. Their trading high-freq machines sit feet from the trading network backbone to ensure they can queue and abort all before your own trade goes through. Additionally, it was pointed out recently that this network is not encrypted because speed is the priority -- so they are basically snooping incoming bids and asks before the rest of the market sees them. High-freq trading is basically illegal and rigged to rip off the market.
Strangely enough, that's what the article is about. A whole bunch of programmers asking for more money, being told they can't have it, then quitting and setting up competing businesses that are outperforming the first set.
You read the article, which means you don't belong on Slashdot.
Please leave.
But I know alot with the same sentiments and effectively migrating to management hoping they'll make their big bucks, often resulting in incompetent management.
Yeah, I know this perfectly. In my country, if you're not a manager by 30, you're a loser. That results in a lot of people moving into management that shouldn't be there, and would be useful doing other things.
Also, companies treat engineers like shit and then complain they can't employ good engineers. There aren't any. They're all too busy being bad managers.
$150k isnt enough for you? Then quit and start your own damn company. Then, you too can be the fat cat sitting up top raking in the millions. Oh wait, but then you'd actually have to have responsibility, make decisions, and manage people. Then it'd actually be your ass on the line in case you make the wrong trading decisions. Don't think you're man enough to handle that? Then shut the fuck up, sit down, and get back to coding, and enjoy the fact that you're raking in the big bucks in a career field (programming) that doesn't normally pay worth shit, and you didn't even have to spend years in the military to get a security clearance and take a job in some armpit of a country to do it!
Unfortunately, employers use the "bad economy" argument to try and justify the rampant abuse. A perceived bad economy is an employer's best friend.
bluHatter
Here we have a bunch of jerks whining about the 6-figure salaries they earn. I wish I were earning what these guys earn. If they have a problem they can go find a job elsewhere. Or do what everyone else has to do, rise through the ranks of the company and get promoted to the point where you're earning the kind of salary you want to see.
While I agree it's quite insane what some in management are earning they also have the responsibility of the entire company on their shoulders. I have a friend who's a programmer at a billion dollar firm that does business related with the stock market and the upper management is comprised of middle aged guys who's entire life is work. The majority are single or divorced and don't even have time for a girlfriend. But anyway, my point is that pay isn't based on what management is earning. It's based on your perceived value to the company. There are probably countless other programmers lined up behind these guys hoping to take their jobs. Not all are qualified but some are.
The whole point of having employees is so that they generate more income, directly or indirectly, than is expended on them. Otherwise, what's the point of keeping them employed? Again, it's rare that you're going to earn a lot more than you do now at the same job you're doing now. So the two best avenues to seeing your income increase is to get promoted or to start your own business.
If you're living in New York, that is probably accurate. In any case, if the software they're writing is producing $100,000/day, it sounds to me like they're on the wrong side of this software. Why not write your own and then use it on the side for some extra $$?
The stock traders make what they do because they know what buttons to push and when.
No, they make so much money because they control money. People who control lots of money always make lots of money. They can make sure of that.
not unless it is attached to a bail out . .and then only while sombody is looking.
Wow! It's amazing what you learn when you actually read the article. I should do it more often.
I don't think you're legally allowed to keep posting on slashdot anymore.
And it ain't just trying to get along with Puck.
I work for a 'big' company, one that just announced huge earnings. My wife says out loud "Honey, they just made (fill in blank with obscene number), they can afford to give you a raise". How sweet, always thinking of me.
And I occasionally do something that by itself saves the company enough to actually be measured on the quarterly report. As in, "Gee, we made 1.245whatever last quarter. If I hadn't fixed blah, we would havw only made 1.44498whatever. Wow."
Oh yea, I'm important, in a lower-case kinda way.
First, these programmers ought to be told that their jobs don't exist except in the broker world, where millisecond trades are practical.
Second, does anyone pay the network admins real money? Ping and latency are crucial for these systems. You don't just go out and buy a gaming router and the business package from Time-Warner to run that sort of software. I bet the netadmins make just enough to keep them from taking bribes to snoop on traffic.
Third, and for me most important, do these programmers think through what they do for a living? Millisecond trading is the epitome of arbitrage, and even more so because it is by its design limited to the big players. The Insiders. The corporate weasels. Nice. The more you learn about HF trading, the more you want to ban it outright. At least slow it down to full seconds. Is there any real value in letting the machines dominate the way they are?
All the more reason I look for investments OUTSIDE the stock market. Wall Street is a cartel.
These whining programmers should consider their position as pretty damned good. But Wall Street is the new Silicon Valley, and programmers like these are basically doing the Valley Shuffle, from one side of the Street to another, jacking their pay each time. Nice work if you can get it, but the dot-com lesson is that sooner or later you are bound by reality. Soon enough, these guys will be happy to get a job coding PHP for the Next Insanely Great Thing, and taking the stock options knowing full well they just got toilet paper for compensation. They will beg for paid parking and a second vending machine. Don't go out and buy that condo quite yet, boys.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I worked for a Wall Street firm for a couple of years. My experience there is that the IT folks are overlooked as being an integral part of the success and failure of the company. For example, traders would be upset if their bonuses weren't equivalent to at least their annual salaries. Us IT folk, however, were lucky to see a bonus check that was equivalent to about twice our bi-weekly paychecks.
In my exit interview, I told the person straight up... we're the ones providing the traders with timely data and faster calculations so that they don't have to go back to using a stubby pencil. Start recognizing what the IT people do, because if they all decided to stop working, the traders would be stuck going back to doing their calculations with stubby pencils and would fall so far behind they'd be losing more money than they'd be generating.
Seems like my prediction finally came true.
OCO is Loco
I always remember one of my first jobs, where I programmed some things that made the company win $400 000 while I was paid the minimum legal salary.
For this one, they gave me a $400 product from the company I was working on as "good work gift" =[
Nowadays I'm paid average but similar stuff still happens often enough, except sometimes I don't even get any gift or bonus. I suppose it's just the way the world goes. I make work I like and make programs I want to be proud of. Most "bosses" or managers work just to get all the money they can get out of it and buy big cars.
I'd like a big car but I couldn't work with the only goal to make money, so I do what I like and gain little. I suppose many people are like that.
I can't believe the number of stupid replies like the GP's waaaa reply. It really shows the thought processes of many programmers: generally socially stunted prima donnas who think their code is better than everyone elses'. This translates to everything in their lives. It is a group that would find ways to argue against you if you said that Mother Teressa was good and a wonderful person; because they didn't think of it first so think their hypothesis (whatever it is) is better. This is a story about people who are doing something about being taken advantage of, and the rest of the herd here can't stand it. They are mostly too scared to take a stand, and too antisocial to group together to stand up for their rights and against being underpaid while managers with their business management 'degrees' make double, triple, ten times or more the salary they make. And they hate it when someone else will stand up for themselves, and hate the people who do the right thing make more money because of it.
This will very likely be marked as a troll by someone who can't stand the truth... but try and read the other comments before you do. You'll see the truth in what I say.
Hello,
I just found a 15% off coupon for Kaspersky. Just type in 'Summersavings' when you are in the shopping cart. Thought I’d share it before it runs out on the 16th August 2010. Got mine today so it does work!
I'm making approx the same as you, 100 000 would make me feel pretty rich :P
Sales jobs will always pay more than technical jobs and a programmer is basically a glorified technician. The disparity between paychecks is relative, but even this is probably a bit excessive.
So why not become a manager then instead, if the money is the thing that matters?
Sure, you cannot tinker with the interesting stuff like algorithms and mathematics, but at least you get wads of dough, and get to deal with corporate politics which typically revolve around illogical arguments and ass-kissing psychopaths.
It's your choice - deal with it or stop whining.
(Disclaimer - I'm not a manager nor software developer, but I realize you cannot get both sides of the coins with a single toss).
Dude, you are clueless. When these expert traders f up they still get their money. It might take months or years for their bad choices to surface but in the meantime they get their commissions and bonuses. Do you think they pay that money back????
Well, for starters, consider the knowledge such programmers need to have in order to write this software:
* financial systems
* frequency trading
* surpassing existing frequency trading
* high speed interconnects and the understanding of both mathematical programming and SMP utilization
* intimate knowledge of "intelligent systems" and how to improve them using predictive math.
* the ability to solve complex problems and adapt to the changing landscape, quickly, due to the rate of change in the ecosystem
In short, we're not talking about bread and butter programming - this kind of stuff is likely much more difficult than any game programming out there, likely on par with game engine development in many ways. It's not easy, and slouches won't cut it.
Not only that, but they're living in New York. I can live relatively comfortably on less than a third of what it'd take for me to "scrape by" in NY (note, I'm married with children, so I'm not your stereotypical geek): if it's not the high cost of living, it's the taxes on "not welfare receivers" and the constant fees for things like parking, vehicle registration, utilities, etc. A construction worker in NYC makes as much as $80k a year, for crying out loud (slightly over twice what I'm making).
Even if renting a 2-bedroom "Economy" apartment in NYC, I'd likely end up spending more than my entire current salary - just on rent. That place is expensive. Similarly, I'm sure there's someone in Sudan or Somolia or wherever is pissed that those wingers in the US make $7.25/hour (or whatever minimum wage is now) to do food service. What extravagance! That must be why they hate us.
That said, everything about frequency trading makes me ill. I'd be really happy if the so-called traders just fired them all, and the so-called "industry" went tits up. They are using the rough equivalent of ad-clicking bots.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Yeah. That's right. "Having their blood sucked from them" isn't defined by absolute value but according to the relation between how much they produce and how much they actually earn.
What exactly are the big risks? If you fail, you turn to your buddies doing well for an "angel investment" and start all over again. If you get caught lying/stealing/cheating, you have to give up about 10% of your hundreds of millions in profit to make the SEC go away.
The people who are investing their money are the only ones taking a risk. If the boss gets greedy and makes a few bad trades, they can kiss a nice chunk of their 401k goodbye. If he does a good job, he'll take 20% of the earnings for himself because he managed to find a couple of sucker programmers willing to write something to do all the work for him.
Making $150,000 a year is having their blood sucked from them?
the code does 100k a day but how much is invested? since HFT represents about 70% (wiki!) of the US trading, i would say a lot..
I basically agree with the sentiment of solidarity, but you know who isn't in this conversation? The truly poor. The web itself is a relatively elite area, and to me, these programmers arguing for a 'fair share' while helping a bunch of overprivileged corporate thugs to ravage the the human and ecological environment, is hardly worth our time or support.
Sounds like you live somewhere in Europe. I'm being serious. I'm European myself, I've noticed this more than once, unfortunately.
$150,000 a year with software making $100,000 a day?
People who work in mints have it worse. They print their yearly salary several times every day.
I found this one interesting. I don't live in California nor NY, but I know the cost of living of NYC is relatively higher than most of the places in the US. (If not the highest).
Having an income that seems lower when compared to other places, working for a money making company doesn't sound fair. Particularly, because I bet making this kind of money (100k daily) puts a hell lot of pressure on your shoulders and your boss is probably constantly pushing to get more.
$150K in NYC is not the same as $150K in BFE. Cost of living and all that jazz.
3 things:
The programmers have gone from $150K annually to $150K annually (more or less, according to the article). The $100K/day number is generated by the amount of capital in play, and the financial firms have lots more of it in play. When they went on their own, they had to use their own money, and accept the risks of loss as well as the rewards of gain. It doesn't actually state (that I saw) how much money is invested to earn the $100K/day, and I'll bet it is a lot more than we think. So the use of the $100K/day number is a little bit of an apples and oranges thing.
I believe that value pricing your services can be done (and teach how to do it). That is, the value of what you do should influence what you get paid. However... this is also affected by how unique what you do is, and if lots of people can do it, even if it is valuable, then you will only get a "commodity" price for it. If the programmers can be replaced by others who can do the same thing for $150K/year, it will tend to limit the compensation to $150K/year. Being already in the job creates a cost of change that can influence the salary upward (less risk that an unknown programmer will not perform as well, no time lost during transition, etc.). In this case, that value was apparently at least an addition $45K/year to the firm they were working for.
Good for them for going out on their own, and good luck with it. Maybe soon we will be able to complain that they are making way too much money for people who are not generating anything useful to society. :)
I don't know that I agree. I think this is a very subjective issue. The reality is, the amount of revenue derived partially from these programmers has absolutely nothing to do with what their compensation is or should be. By their rationale, every teller at a bank should have salaries commensurate with that bank's revenue, since they're an element in processing deposits/checks/payments/etc. Hell, the data center I run makes millions every hour, but I don't expect that I should make 7 or 8 figures because of it.
If the Bank Tellers got some percentage of the money they made the bank by working on the counter that would be similar to the rationale proposed/suggested by the programmers. I suspect the the Bank Tellers often get paid more than they personally make for the bank. Also, if a teller decides to leave, the bank won't find it hard to find someone to replace them.
The programmers, on the other hand, are directly increasing the bank's profits by their actions, and if they all left it would be more difficult to replace them (though obviously not impossible!).
These programmers have done exactly the right thing by going it alone. Now they can make the big bucks off the back of their endeavours, but similarly risk making no bucks if it doesn't work. ...
This is just as it should be, and well done to them for making the first leap
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
Frequency trading could be fixed quickly. The NASDAQ , the NYSE, and the other exchanges could simply say that if you buy a stock you have to hold it for 24 hours. If you think that's too long, I might agree, but I think we can all agree that no value is added by buying/selling a stock in under a second to make a profit. That money is coming from folks who are long-term investors trying to have some sort of retirement.
Yes, I live in Portugal. But in the north of Europe and the USA I've seen old engineers working in companies. They make decent money and are very respected.
Round here, the only respectable occupations are commercial and managerial.
Actually, most of the rewards of business operations in the US (and, for that matter, much of the world) goes to the owners, not the workers (including the managers), though managers -- especially at the executive level -- do quite well compared to other workers.
That's why our economic system is called "capitalism": it is run by, and for the benefit of, the large holders of capital.
Revenues should always be marginal. That goes for wages too. Otherwise the system doesn't work, or is rigged.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
And I would add that the only reason that those programmers would have a hard time on their own is not because of the difficulty of running the business or an inability to stomach risk, but because of lack of capital. You need money to make money. Even that 100k a day figure is likely a smal, small percentage of the amount of total capital they have in the game.
No independent software jockey is going to have 100m in capital to make those micro transactions worthwhile. Plus, some of this software depends on the firm being co-located with the exchange, or having significant presence on the floor, or a significant number of clients to trade _against_.
You can't do this from your studio walkup with a DSL line.
I wish I had their job. I would not complain. This is what happens when you make wrong choices when hiring. So many say "If you don't have a job, don't bother to apply" or make choices that have similar effects. So I say to them "Do you really want to hire only those disloyal or dissatisfied with their current job?" And the results? They end up hiring wambulance riders!
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
In a perfect world the programmers could just quit and start their own trading firm.
If you had read the article you would know that they did precisely that.
No news here, nothing to see here move along.
I'm in the US and it's the same way. If you're older and not management, folks say "What's wrong with you?" I guess the concept of being a productive, useful person fell by the wayside at some point.
I can only hope someone is fixing whole situation by taking managers into custody oor at least closing their "financial institutions". For more info on HiFreq Trading, Sam Bee: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-30-2009/cash-cow---high-frequency-trading
839*929
Belgium, same situation yet much of management is really a joke.
If these things can turn around huge profits and you write them ... then you can increase your own freak salary but using them.
You make a large bonus at these sorts of firms that is contingent on your success. This guy talks about his salary. What was his bonus?
This guy, understandably AC, has insights as one of the participants.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
A year or two ago I saw a TV program interviewing a mid-level management dude in NY city earning $400K and it's family spending/budgeting. They're kinda crazy by choosing to live on 5th Avenue (something like a stupid small 700-800 sq ft condo), have a nanny and send 2 kids to private school, in any case that salary pretty much all drained by expenses.
Of course, the model wherein even during the recovery between the two most recent recessions, pretty much all the rewards of the growth went to a very narrow band at the top is a big part of the reason that we have a bad economy (the housing collapse was the blow that broke it, but the state that economy was in that made it fragile was due to the way that the distribution of rewards over the preceding several years had made it), so in a large part its the major capital owners using the results of them grabbing everything for themselves and not allowing workers to share in the gains to justify grabbing everything for themselves and not allowing workers to share in the gains.
I used to work for a very large e-commerce company that made millions every day off the code I wrote in exchange for a monthly salary. If the code I wrote had made no money for the company I would still get my monthly salary. There was essentially very little risk involved for me. Today I have my own e-commerce company. I don't make millions yet but I still have to pay my programmers their monthly salary. If and when I start making millions that's what they're still gonna get because that's what we agreed to and that's my reward for taking the risk. Of course, once I have a lot I can give them bonuses for their performance if I want to, but that's my choice. If I go under tomorrow I'll be stuck with a ton of debts while the programmers can just get another job (and none of them will be giving me money to help pay for those debts). As for the bosses getting more money than the programmers, that's also the way it works. They have more responsibility, so they have to make more money. If something goes wrong in their department it's also usually their head, not the programmer's. People can always stop being programmers and pursue a management career. It all just depends on the choices you make for yourself.
Because they can't afford the rent to get close enough (in the basement of) the exchange?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Here in Portugal there's been a permanent "crisis" since I can remember.
Employers are always threatening, not realising how they hurt their employees dedication and motivation. Also, if people perceive a crisis, they'll buy less stuff, hurting the companies in the end.
Adding insult to injury, the industry big bosses, TV pundits and politicians are always screaming bloody murder about our labour laws, claiming they're the most restrictive in Europe (which is a lie). And then the same stupid assholes complain they can't get foreign investment. If they're chasing away foreign investors with their stupid whining, what the fuck do they expect?
But do you live in NY?
Let's be blunt.
The code this programmer produced does not do anything except help the wealthiest 1% get wealthier.
Those reaping the benefits from his code are not doing a damn thing except taking advantage of the matter that people are just hardcoded to do some stupid things.
This programmer is just helping the rich with wealth generation capture http://www.businessinsider.com/us-wealth-inequality-2010-7
This programmer is COMPLETELY replaceable in this endeavor.
And it isn't like this program is actually producing anything new. It's leveraging the mass response of the wetware.
http://wallstreet.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/05/07/the-nyse-and-high-frequency-trading/
But it doesn't matter. Odds are this programmer is just as self destructive as the 27 percenters... http://www.balloon-juice.com/balloon-juice-lexicon-a-h/
If he wants the gap between his salary and those that pay him to financially rape the public, he should be looking to see how he can tweak his code to randomly create huge losses for his employer that would at the same time benefit causes that DO improve the livelihood of others.
So in summary. This programmer can go stuff it and his employer can go stuff it too.
The model used to computerize the stock market was wrong.
Everything should be in batch mode. Bids and Asks would be you put it into the system, then matched in a batch according to well known rules, and then the results of the matching process would be sent to everyone. The batch would run every 5 minutes as an example. This would prevent front running and many other forms mischievous behavior.
Batch mode is under-appreciated in the the Internet Age.
if they can't understand how their system is used to generate the 100k / day then the 100k / year they earned was too much
I think that something really important to remember in all this is they live in NY. You pretty much have to divide their salary by half to get an equivalent salary anywhere else in the US.
Even with that in mind, I think the real problem isn't that the programmers should make more, it is that the traders should make LESS. Whining about not being able to take advantage of rigging the game to funnel money to yourself like your superiors do shouldn't get you any sympathy.
Ok, half of 150,000 USD is 75,000 USD which is a lot more than a lot of programmers make in the rest of the US. You can live in such a way that you need 150,000 USD or you can simply choose live in a different part of the city (or outskirts) and not live such an extravagant lifestyle. That way you can save up money, invest it and retire early.
You make it sound like everyone living there has to earn at least 50,000 USD just to get by which is not true. I'm sure there are people who work in NY who earn 20 percent of what this guy is earning (30,000) and get by just fine.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Unfortunately the rest of those managers don't understand the Peter Principle and often just aren't well educated in business management.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Mind you, I met a couple of Swedish software development managers who weren't even 25. Needless to say, they were complete morons at either management or software engineering. One sad, sad trend in Europe is thinking that if you go to college (after which you get your obligatory master's degree or even a doctorate) you'll be guaranteed to fit a manager role. I've had kids coming to interviews for software development positions, with no previous experienge, saying they expected to become managers in 6 months. Why? Because, they said, they went to the right university. It's not even funny. Most rich kids, who can afford turning 28-30 and still be in school, become managers only because they're unfit at anything else, since they totally lack the real world experience. I'm Romanian. I used to have a Croatian girlfriend who told me the same about her country. I now live in France. Guess what, it's the same.
Exactly right. The value doesn't actually come from the algorithms, it comes from the position of the bank which gives it access to information before the rest of the market, allowing the big banks to (illegally? certainly unethically) skim money while essentially creating no new value for the marketplace. There are plenty of people who could write those programs, but only a few people in strategic positions can make sure the banks get the inside track to screw everyone else on earth. Hooray for deregulation!
Half of playing the game is to know the players.
If you're living in New York, that is probably accurate. In any case, if the software they're writing is producing $100,000/day, it sounds to me like they're on the wrong side of this software. Why not write your own and then use it on the side for some extra $$?
Yes, if you choose to live in New York in a convenient location and live a comfortable lifestyle then you can end up consuming enough money that you "get by" on 100,000 dollars a year but did it ever occur to you that there are plenty of working stiff that make a fraction of that who somehow seem to get by too?
The software they wrote is not producing money. The traders are using it as a "TOOL" to ply their business to earn 100,000 dollars a day.
These whiny children need to put things in perspective.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Read. The. Fine. Article? What, are you crazy, this is the 21st Century and NOBODY reads articles anymore - everything they need to know is supplied to them via a catchy headline and maybe a tweet from somebody "cool" - because anything that can't be conveyed in 140 characters or less simply isn't worth knowing. I mean if all these people typing "waaaaaa" had actually bothered to read the article they'd know these guys have moved on, invested in themselves, and are taking the risks themselves but making big bucks as a result. Good for them. Ooooh, gotta go, somebody just tweeted me that LiLo is getting released today - I sooooo have to know who's going to do her makeover.
"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Det. Bunk
My solution was to leave that sort of organization and start my own tech services firm. I own the place, but all my employees own it with me as well. Also, I get to be hands-on all week on routers, switches, servers, and so forth. Big business sucks.
Why is it those who complain most about low programmer earnings are also the same that also most strongly oppose labor organization among technical professionals?
I'd make an analogy here, except there's nothing in society we let people buy and sell that fast, certainly not giant entities....I'd like to see someone try to buy a house and resell it ten milliseconds later.
And I'd like to see the law that sets a limit on how fast we can buy and sell things--even houses.
It's usually not practically possible to buy and sell houses so quickly, because of the need for clear title, etc. But as far as I know there is no law or regulation that actually sets out time limits.
The problem with setting long minimum ownership times is that it creates low liquidity. I'm not saying we need millisecond transactions to make markets, but a month would be way too long.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
$150K in NYC is not the same as $150K in BFE. Cost of living and all that jazz.
Dude, NYC is full of people earning less than 20 percent of that amount who somehow get by. There are plenty of choices you can make to get by on less even if you earn a lot of money.
1. Choose to live outside of NYC and commute by train or choose a cheaper neighbourhood in NYC
2. Shop for groceries where you live and brown bag it.
3. Buy cheaper but long lasting clothing.
You can then take all of that money that you save and invest it towards an early retirement .
Your cost of living is largely in your own control through the choices you make.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Sounds like you live somewhere on Earth. I'm being serious. I'm Earthling myself, I've noticed this more than once, unfortunately.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Adding insult to injury, the industry big bosses, TV pundits and politicians are always screaming bloody murder about our labour laws, claiming they're the most restrictive in Europe (which is a lie).
Interestingly the same lies can be heard here in Sweden as well as in Denmark, Norway and France (don't know about other countries but I suspect the same is true there). It's always the same crap as well "our restrictive socialist labour laws are the worst in Europe and are making us fall behind by punishing business owners" and "Our companies being taxed much worse than businesses in any other European country"...
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Maybe they are excellent programmers, but bad business men. It doesn't mean they deserve to have their blood sucked from them.
No, I'm pretty certain that capitalism dictates that this is exactly what it means they deserve. There's one born every minute, and if they're that unhappy with their salaries, then they should quit!
they will no doubt discover that it's just as easy to lose money as to make it. When they do, the security of their old, relatively low-paying gigs might start to look pretty good.
Probably not. While they will lose money, they'll probably already madk a couple years salary by that time, so its still worthwhile to do it.
Workers get to keep more of the money their labor produces only when they organize and work together to keep it. That's what unions do. Without unions, we'd all be replaceable by those privileged to be bosses, through their old boy networks.
When programmers have a working labor union, it'll be harder for bosses to keep 99.9% of what the programmers produce, while programmers work 60 hour weeks.
--
make install -not war
First, would you expect all those brush makers out there to get a cut of all the artwork sold at galleries? Would the company that made the blade for the scalpel be entitled to a cut of the organ transplant operation?
The software I write helps make million$ yet I do not deserve megabuck bonuses. I certainly don't make $150K (I wish I get get abused in that fashion). If I don't like it, I don't have to remain and keep my job. So what if the CEO can buy a Porsche using my tools? I agreed to the arrangement.
I also happen to feel HFT should be illegal in the first place. It is just a novel form of theft and the very essence of anti-competitiveness.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
Point taken :)
So, every country in Europe has the "most restrictive labour laws in Europe"? That's funny.
If being an "idiot stock trader" who makes millions is so easy, why aren't you doing it?
Ethics.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The bitter $150k salaried programmer is going to be shocked to find that some bean counter will find a way for a PhD in Bangalore to do his job for $50k (and consider herself well compensated)
However the real shock will happen when the combination of really sophisticated applications, HPC clusters and globalized business smarts gets the NYC trader making millions replaced by a Bangalore MBA merely making a few hundred k.
Shareholders at the big investment firms should be a lot more interested in having the second one happening as it will yield much more.
of course not
a large german city
Most people miss an important point regarding salaries, and you actually referred to it passingly: Salaries are not given because of how much money you make or how directly you are connected to the money making portion of the business - you are paid for how hard it is to replace you. :) ). What does matter is how hard it is to replace said programmer, and this depends on the complexity of the software he wrote. Maybe he wrote Pacman which is a simple program but brought lots of revenues or maybe he wrote the next version of Office all by himself. I don't know. The latter is very hard to replace and should be paid accordingly, while if the former is being paid 150k, then he should say thank you and STFU.*
The teller in the bank is very important for the bank's profits. If there were no tellers, a significant portion of the bank's revenues would be lost. But, replacing a teller is easy. There are not so many requirements from a teller regarding former education/experience and the on job training is quite easy. On the other extreme, the CEO of the company is very hard to replace. He worked and studied years to be able to do his job (well, ideally) and the on job experience is invaluable and thus makes him hard to replace. When a CEO is replaced there is a period of unsteadiness in the company.
Programmers are somewhere in the middle. It does not matter that they are the one that actually wrote the program. They are part of the profit-making machine in the same way that the marketing person that closed the deal and the catering guy that brought the food are critical to the proper operation of the company (don't know about you, but if the catering stopped catering, then my entire workplace will stop working
Bottom line, throwing numbers like: I make 150k a year while my boss makes 10x is pointless. The important thing is how invaluable you are. If you leaving will cause major problems to the company, they should pay more. If not, than you should stop complaining.
* - Yes, I read the summery, and he codes algorithms for financial institutes, I gave those examples just to clarify my general point. No, I did not RTFA, problems? :)
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Do you even know what high-frequency trading is? All of the intelligence are in algorithms, which are written as computer programs.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
If the boss makes 10 times as much as each of her 100 employees and the skills of that boss are leading to the same standard of living improvement rate for her, her 100 employees, and the 10000 in the community, it sounds like a fabulous deal.
Except it's the boss making 100-1000 times as much as her 10 employees and while her standard of living keeps going up, it's at the cost of reducing the standard of living for millions far beyond the community.
Reminds me of when I was an Intern for a DoD agency making less than $10/hr and they contracted me out to another code for $45/hr and then I would go to different bases and they will bill the base $90/hr for my services. Best part about it, i was traveling around working 10-12hr days but still had to go back to the hotel and do my online courses to fulfill my internship obligations. Ahhh, those were the days.
I that salary enough for Germany? I had the impression the Germans make a lot more money than us (Portuguese).
If you make your company $36,500,000 a year.... and see less than one percent of those earnings?
This is not the funny you're looking for.
Let the developers take anywhere from 1% to 5% of profit realized by the applications they write. Fair is fair.
For example, if the gentleman in the case presented is pulling $150K but his app generates $100,000 in revenue, 5% of that would be $5K per day or $1.825 million per year for him. I'd say that would be equitable.
Most senior developers make $100k-$175k where I live. There are people who live in NYC that don't make anything at all and sleep on the street. So he could do that instead of complaining about his job is what you're suggesting.
This is not a matter of earning enough to survive, that's the the debate at all. It is a matter of fair compensation. If you're doing most of the work should you get most of the pay. These programmers, the creators of the software, feel they are being exploited by traders who are mere users of the software.
On the other hand, in the consumer electronics world, I don't think it is so unusual to make low 6 figures as a key developer while an executive makes 7 figures on a product that is pulling in 9 figures.
My industry is a little different since there are so many low level people involved in the software, hardware, mechanical, testing and design. If what I did was some software package constructed by just one or two engineers then I might feel justified in asking for a bigger slice of the pie.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I'm good at logic, bad at negotiation. I'm good with machines, bad with people.
So I say to them "Do you really want to hire only those disloyal or dissatisfied with their current job?"
So you're basically hiring new grads, unemployed, or people in situations where they must find a new job? Sure, I understand how jobhopping can look bad. But I've never heard of bashing someone for leaving a job they hate, either.
Actually no. The software they are most likely talking about, High Frequency trading software, acts on its own, for the most part, because it analyzes trades on a millisecond timeframe, far faster than any human can "push the right buttons"
Indeed couldn't agree more.
<snark>
Poor Carly was forced to run for the senate. Having to live the lifestyle of a senator rather than a high-flying CEO is so harsh - and that is only if enough peasants actually vote for her. What an indignity! I am getting my keyboard all wet while I write this. Just can't hold back the tears *the poor woman*.
</snark>
At least this takes their minds off the high-capacitance stocks that have been trying to get rid of them for the longest time.
Dude, you are clueless. When these expert traders f up they still get their money. It might take months or years for their bad choices to surface but in the meantime they get their commissions and bonuses. Do you think they pay that money back????
OK, let's say you have an extra $20 million to invest in the market. Are you going to invest via the broker that f'ed up months or years ago (now that their bad choices have surfaced), or are you going to invest in the guy(s) that have a good track record? Of course, you're not going to go with the guy that has made bad choices. Your $20 million, plus the thousands of other investors with extra cash laying around that will make the same decision you do, mean millions in lost commission from the guy that screwed up, even if he was paid for the original screw up.
Next, you are a manager at a major financial trading firm. You got a guy in the trenches making decisions that have cost your clients millions or even billions. When your clients lose money, they don't have extra cash to invest in the future, meaning your company loses money and YOU lose money. How long are you going to keep this guy around? Is he going to be one of the guys you give bonuses to, promote and invite to that dinner party your wife holds to keep busy?
In other words, even if traders make money on bad trades, they will lose money, possibly all of it, in the long run if they make bad trades. It takes several "attaboys" to make up for each "Oh sh*t".
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
That's the only way to get the superstars... I ALWAYS am the guy looking for the next job. Why? because asshole executives dont promote high skill tech people... they want to keep them where they are at. So I jump ship every 3-5 years to get my own promotion and pay raise. It is the way most sucessful people climb the ladder.
Honestly only a complete fool is loyal to the company. Because the company is never EVER loyal to you.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You can push a few buttons, right?
There is no button to push, everything is automated.
Don't you know what High-Frequency Trading is ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_frequency_trading
It's about transactions done within a few milliseconds, so it's impossible to trade manually.
Did someone order waaaaaamburgers and french cries?
If you think that you can do any better, go out and start your own firm.
How strange that you can type without being able to read....
to do a barrel roll, press z or r twice!
If being an "idiot stock trader" who makes millions is so easy, why aren't you doing it?
Ethics.
So you think that investing retirement funds for hard working Americans is unethical? What do you think happens to all that IRA/401k money? Are the guys that try to grow grandma's money so she doesn't have to sell the house unethical?
**DISCLOSURE**
I do not work for a financial firm. However, my younger brother is a programmer for one.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
IANAL, but you can't really be held liable unless it was intentional. Since you're not a professional in the same sense as a doctor or lawyer or civil engineer.
But your career in that industry would likely be over if you lost some big firm a billion dollars, because word would get out. In fact the rumor mill could blame you even if it wasn't your fault. I can imagine there is a lot of cover-your-ass behavior in that industry.
They could go program in a different industry if that happened, but I suspect they would feel like a failure if it came to that.
You don't have to be under physical or financial threat to feel high stress. Most programmers(and people in general) let themselves get into a psychological state where they are high stressed, even though rationally what they do is not really that vital. Nobody is going to die if they screw up. And they are educated and could find a job elsewhere if they lost this one. But usually developers just let their employers amp up the stress until they have a mental breakdown.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It has been my experience that the majority of people who don't actually work in sales, maintenance, or on production lines could, and most likely should be replaced with a few lines of code, if your job involves you doing nothing more than moving a few numbers around then your job could easily be handled by a computer with a much more consistent level of performance. Want to reduce costs and increase performance? Fire the vast majority of people holding meetings looking for ways to think outside the box, hire a couple of statisticians who know how to apply Benfords law correctly to the various metrics and data sets you already have, then send in the axemen where anomalies crop up. The biggest problem with management is that the computer revolution has failed to reduce the size of the management workforce, even though that is what it is best able to do and that is where the vast amount of corporate savings and higher dividend s for the stock can be created.
A lot of people who get silly high salaries do that.
Live outside the city and ride the train with us nasty dirty people that make a paltry $85,000 a year. I know. we are dirty nasty icky poor people... But we promise we wont lick you on the train.....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Just discretize time in five minutes units. Order on the same time slot are filled in a best match (buy price most near to sell price) or not filled at all if no match is given. End the High Frequency Scam.
$29 bucks a year? Wow dude... you better panhandle better.
Also why do you carry it out to 3 decimal places?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You don't know what you're talking about. Most trading is done entirely by software now, and traders just oversee it.
The big firms compete by getting ultra-low latency connections ("microsecond trading") to the stock exchanges and by developing ever better/faster software to exploit market conditions slightly ahead of their competitors.
It's the standard notation in my country.
That's ridiculous! Of course I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is that it strikes me as wrong thinking to just throw out of consideration those who are unemployed due to no fault of their own.
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
You stupid sack of after-birth.
"If you think that you can do any better, go out and start your own firm."
Programmers are not business people, that's why business people hire programmers. And you simply don't "start your own firm", it doesn't work that way. Unlike today's children a financial firm isn't born with some nebulous "respect" quality already built-in (or whatever children today think they have that they haven't earned... they way I hear them talk sometimes.) Trading & financial firms require trust with their customers, something that should be very obvious to everyone (you included) since the last 2 years or so.
I will agree, if the offered salary isn't enough, then one should move on to the next offer, but what if all the offers are the same? Also, living in the trading capitols of Manhattan and Chicago require lots of capital. Manhattan is one of the most expensive places IN THE WORLD to live in, the condos around Wall & Water streets are some of the most expensive real estate in the world. I recently heard report that a Park ave. condo was sold to an investment banker (Mexican national) for 40 million. Commuting to and from a job that can take up 60% of your time (and you need to squeeze in sleep and regular life in the other 40%) from Queens or Brooklyn is simply draining. If an investment firm makes 100K a DAY from the code a programmer writes surly they can squeeze of a doubling of that guys yearly pay. Not realizing that your undercutting such valuable staff to that degree is simply arrogance and greed.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
And the trader can be replaced at more savings! And your company can manage to operate INDEFINITELY without a C*O!
But these are the people with money and therefore in a capitalist system, power, so that won't happen.
Where? Around the midwest everyone considers management, specifically middle management positions to be where you put the ineffective idiots so they dont screw anything up.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
OK, that's the theory.
Now, tell me exactly how irreplaceable the MBA is who partied all through college and gets a cushy Wall Street job "managing" according to some textbook formula with nary an original thought to his name.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Chicago IT industry; I spent a significant time in different consulting houses. Dislike.
These programs have no idea as to when to buy, sell or hold. All they do is retrieve data and analyze it into reports. It's up to the trader to know what to do with it.
There are no traders. The programs are doing the trading. These aren't called "high-frequency reporting programs" for a reason.
I would disagree. These high frequency trades add liquidity and depth to the market.
I work for a investment company that offers plain vanilla products [Mutual Funds, Life Insurance, etc.] to average people.
20 years ago when we traded shares the bid/ask spread was between 12.5 to .25 cents. Now it is routinely lower then a penny.
When we bought or sold we knew we were going to affect the market – and not in our favor.
In short, our trading costs [both direct and indirect] have fallen by over 80% because the market is so much more efficient and deeper then when it was. These savings get passed to our investors. This is true for the industry as a whole.
Most of the rest of the nation is plain *revolted* at that entire casino scam industry and the huge wealth they skim out of the economy.
They need to slap the local sales tax on these high speed trades, just for a starter. They insist on calling those BS gambling games "financial products", fine, let them be treated like any other "product" and apply the sales tax to them. It's not "investment" anymore, it's just gambling.
And before anyone says "but, but, we need this and.."" chuck you farley, if it worked, and really helped the economy, they wouldn't have needed that bailout, now would they? Admit reality, it's a harmful conjob "industry". It's a broken, crooked, rigged, screwed up system and needs to be knocked down about 18 pegs or so, the whole ball game there is WAY overpaid for what they do, not just those poor 150 grand programmers.
One such anonymous programmer points out that he was paid $150,000 per year, whereas the software he wrote was generating $100,000 per day.
Wrong. The very large amount of money your boss invested (and risked), along with the algorithm that you coded (which your boss likely gave you pseudo code for) was generating $100,000 per day.
You mean like when you apply for a job, and someone you've never met offers a salary he thinks you are worth?
And are you seriously suggesting that personally knowing people is somehow going to make you less biased?
There are very good arguments that traders should have caps put on their salaries... that it limits risk taking, especially herd risk taking. Which wouldn't be a problem, except the risks they take are only partially their own.
But you choose a horrible example because you are defending high-frequency trading. A lot of people (myself included) have no problem limiting the compensation in this case to 3-5 in a federal penitentiary. It's a deadweight loss on the system. Basically, if you don't know the euphemism, high-frequency trading is when Goldman Sachs sees that two people have are looking to make a trade at the going market rate, and because the are literally an LPB, quickly buy from the seller, mark it up a tiny amount, and sell it to the buyer. All they do is skim money, cause they can.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
The "idiot stock traders" are successful not because they're brilliant but because there are so many "idiot stock traders." Some of them are bound to win.
I know 2 guys who left my current company to do this (for different employers). Both are comfortably into the mid-6-figures. If you're good, you can get the pay. The fact that you're not getting the pay ... probably says something about your talent.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Grow a pair and fuck 'em by leaving.
And then you're out of a job while the next batch of programmers arrives the next day, hat in hand, ready to keep making the managers and VPs rich. So who just got fucked?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127747626
JOFFE-WALT: This is Steve Rubinow with the New York Stock Exchange, and he says if you want to sell something, you want to buy something, those high-frequency computer are there to sell and buy from you.
Mr. RUBINOW: Which makes for a fairer market for all participants, both the people that are up to their necks in it, and people like you and me as retail customers. Those prices are about as fair as they can be.
JOFFE-WALT: No way, says Kevin Cronin. He works for Invesco. And Cronin is more like what you think of as a regular investor - manages big pension funds and mutual funds. And he says high-frequency computers watch what he does. When he starts to buy, the computers swoop in and start to buy as well, and then sell at a higher price minutes, sometimes even seconds later.
Mr. KEVIN CRONIN (Director, Invesco Global Equity Trading): They dont care about the stocks. All they care about is jumping in front of us and making a penny or two, and doing that millions of times a day.
JOFFE-WALT: That seems annoying to you. But why is that...
Mr. CRONIN: Of course it's annoying.
JOFFE-WALT: Oh, but why is that wrong?
Mr. CRONIN: What are they doing to provide anything in the marketplace other than trying to take the information that our orders give and try to profit themselves?
JOFFE-WALT: Now, high-frequency traders counter that anyone can pay to get access to that information and that speed.
The reality is, the amount of revenue derived partially from these programmers has absolutely nothing to do with what their compensation is or should be. By their rationale, every teller at a bank should have salaries commensurate with that bank's revenue, since they're an element in processing deposits/checks/payments/etc. Hell, the data center I run makes millions every hour, but I don't expect that I should make 7 or 8 figures because of it.
And here we have the key difference between finance wonks (or lawyers) and the rest of the planet. Of course your salary should be a fraction of the value you handle or stand next to. The value you handle is a direct indication of both the importance of your task and of the company's ability to pay you. Market theory says you should charge for your services just as much as the client is able to pay, right?
Ummm...we're talking about high frequency trading here. No human can get involved in transactions that require millisecond precision. The programs are doing the trading.
I think the real problem isn't that the programmers should make more, it is that the traders should make LESS
I don't know that I agree. I think this is a very subjective issue. The reality is, the amount of revenue derived partially from these programmers has absolutely nothing to do with what their compensation is or should be. By their rationale, every teller at a bank should have salaries commensurate with that bank's revenue, since they're an element in processing deposits/checks/payments/etc. Hell, the data center I run makes millions every hour, but I don't expect that I should make 7 or 8 figures because of it.
The lesson here is: negotiate well on the way in. Do your homework, find out what the job entails and what responsibilities/liabilities you will have and determine for yourself if the compensation being offered is worth it. Once you cut the deal, that's it. If you don't like it, you can do as the programmers in the article are doing, go somewhere else and try to negotiate a better deal. It ain't personal, it's business.
Not necessarily-the bank tellers process transactions. They don't enable anything in the bank that helps the bank leverage their work to make more money, though. The programmers are writing code that makes the ability for the traders to make millions actually exist.
If it's not broken, let's fix it till it is.
>
and the managers will have to offer more money to get people to do the work,
if it is worth doing at the higher rate of pay.
Sure, if you can make a strong argument, agreed to by 90+% of the population, as to why his job is a net detriment to society.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I think I should explain a bit here. I get what you say and I understand where you are coming from. I agree, if a person hates his job he should find another job without being "Bashed" for it but here is where I'm coming from ...
I had a brother, he had the face everyone would hire. He would get a job and keep it for a couple of weeks and then just not show up because he wanted to go fishing. He did this over and over and over. Finally he got such a rep he had to move away to get another job - This is what my parents said. So he moved from town to town doing the same thing for years before he finally settled down.
I looked at that and said I would never be such a quitter.
So now it's my turn. We have an uncommon last name - People would recognize it a mile away and guess what? I could not get a job! I finally had to move away to a town where nobody knew me and go through the most hellish poverty you can imagine. Finally I get a job, I hold it for 2 years. Then I get another and I hold it for nine years. I loved that job but the company was taken over and shut down. Now I'm out of work and it really hurts to be told not to even apply because I don't have a current W2 job. They don't even know me, they are judging me on things I had little or no control over. So now that you know something about me, maybe you might see things from my side of the issue a bit instead of rattling off snap judgements about how I feel and do things.
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
Right. How many folks here make six figures? I've had a *long* career as a developer and as a sysadmin, and I'd need a 10% to make six figures for the first time in my life.
Then there's the incestuousness of it all: I used to live in Chicago, and I know, from innumerable resumes sent out and phone calls that unless you have experience in programming in the trading industry, you can't get a job in the industry.
Yes, you do note that there's no entry point to that loop.
mark
You can't make it illegal to buy and sell things quickly, nor do I think you would want to.
However, what you can do is tax gains on short term investments aggressively. You might tax gains on assets held less than a year at 90%, then going down to 50% until 3 years, and then going down to 10% or less beyond that.
Liar. Licking is a chronic problem on the NY trains.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Why can't these guys work from 'home'...home being somewhere other than NYC.
Personally, I'm thinking an internet connection somewhere in the Caribbean with a beach, a broad and a rum drink within reach.
That kind of money would still do good down there, and you'd not have to put up with the rude people up there in NYC.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
What happens to all the retirement money? Um, apparently it goes away when those selfless altruistic traders decide they want a larger bonus. They grow their own money and nobody elses. If grandma gets more money it's a side effect. Some trading firms are being investigated because they put their trades in first and grandmas last. That way they buy lower, sell higher and grandma gets whatever she gets in the middle.
yeeeeehaw!
You get paid what the market will bear .... if there is a market.
Back when I worked for Boeing, I administrated six *NIX servers (a mix of AIX, HP-UX and SunOS systems). It spite of continued pressure from our IT department to use them*. Those duties took about 10% of my time. IT provided similar support services to using departments, for $50,000 per month per server. So I went to my manager and told him that, to be fair, I should be paid $3.6 million a year. Or, if I extended that pay rate to all of my daily duties, $36 million. Fortunately, he had a good sense of humor and I had to settle for a mere 6 figure salary (eight if you counted the decimal places, my boss pointed out).
*The engineering department was granted an exception from the mandatory IT contract (per corporate policy). This was due to the FAA having stepped in and kicking them off the job following a fatal crash stemming from poor product definition configuration control at their hands.
Have gnu, will travel.
"The lesson here is: negotiate well on the way in. Do your homework, find out what the job entails and what responsibilities/liabilities you will have and determine for yourself if the compensation being offered is worth it. Once you cut the deal, that's it..."
No, I would think the lesson is: Salaried employment is mostly a dead-end deal. I would recommend that anyone really ambitious work a salaried job in their chosen field for about 2 years (just like these guys did) and then strike out with their own company, ownership of IP and profits, etc. (just like these guys did).
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
He said the equivalent of $29,000, and phrased it as 'the equivalent of USD 29.000'. I'd put a bet on him being from a country that uses . as their money-thousands separator.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I'm in the dark, I'd like to read his mind
but I'm frightened of the things I might find
Oh, there must be something he's thinking of
to tear him away
when I tell him that I'm falling in love
why does he say
hush hush
keep it down now
voices carry
I try so hard not to get upset
because I know all the trouble I'll get
oh, he tells me tears are something to hide
and something to fear
and I try so hard to keep it inside
so no one can hear
hush hush
keep it down now
voices carry
He wants me
but only part of the time
He wants me
if he can keep me in line
hush hush
keep it down now
voices carry
hush hush, darling, she might overhear
oh, no-voices carry
he said shut up he said shut up
oh God can't you keep it down
voices carry
I wish he would let me talk
captcha: sucked
This is a high frequency trading software aka algorithmic trading. Nobody actually pushes any buttons whatsoever in fact there it is humanly impossible. The software analyzes data and executes lots of trades on it's own faster than you can blink.
And you really think the colleagues using the software were footing the bill? Bullshit. It's about time developers stood up and demanded compensation for their inventions instead of letting idiot stock traders reap the rewards by pushing a few buttons.
The stock traders make what they do because they know what buttons to push and when. If they push the wrong button at the wrong time, they stand to lose millions for their clients and themselves. These programs have no idea as to when to buy, sell or hold. All they do is retrieve data and analyze it into reports. It's up to the trader to know what to do with it.
If being an "idiot stock trader" who makes millions is so easy, why aren't you doing it? You can push a few buttons, right?
That simply isn't true, The traders in high frequency trading have no control at all. *All* control is given to the programs. The idea is that the trades need to happen in fractions of a second from detection to buy to sell, or the differential in prices detected will disappear before the trade is complete. High frequency trading was *impossible* without very fast computerized trading, and high power processing to enable the detection of these opportunities, and act on them before they disappear. The only part the traders actually do is insert money, and take the risk. The thing is that with these programs in place, the risks are very low, and the profits are very high. That kind of a situation is bad for someone. I have the sneaking suspicion that this could be described a s money pump. It is specifically designed (and capable of) pumping money out of the economy. It begs the question: Who gets hurt, and how long will it take before it collapses?
-=Eric Schumann
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
The problem with your theory is that those traders do not typically have their own skin in the game, while they still get a percentage of the win on their successes. So there is no downside. Win once, and you are set to retire if you want. But you can keep playing until you make a massive loss, and keep all your winnings even when you do.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
"If being an 'idiot stock trader' who makes millions is so easy, why aren't you doing it? You can push a few buttons, right?"
As others have pointed out, in high-frequency trading, everything is indeed fully automated, and there are no buttons to push.
Furthermore, read the article: As one example, "If a programmer brings money with him, and puts up at least $250,000 to become an HTG partner, Hehmeyer hikes his percentage of the take." So many of these positions are based on either large capital investments, or who-you-know-networking. You can't just "decide" to get a position paying millions, that's not how it works.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
24 hours might be a little long. However, something like 5 minutes would be perfect. The interval is low enough that most average traders wouldn't notice it, and it still is long enough that most HFT would be severely limited.
Maybe you should be a little more discerning about where you work.
Agreed. So what's next? We all pool together enough to buy the NASDAQ and implement this?
By their rationale, every teller at a bank should have salaries commensurate with that bank's revenue, since they're an element in processing deposits/checks/payments/etc.
Not really. The programmer who writes the algorithm is, in many of these firms, the main driver of profits. The teller is just an accessory. Tellers are largely interchangeable but the algorithm, if even slightly different, might make 0 profit instead of millions. Your logic is like telling Edison he doesn't deserve the bulk of profits from the light bulb, because then you'd have to split the profits evenly with all the factory workers in the bulb factory, too.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
> whereas the software he wrote was generating $100,000 per day
So, is this software available as an iPhone app? I have a feeling it would be pretty popular.
The article says they are doing exactly what I think they should - look to move into the trading type positions and earn some of the money themselves! If you want to earn the money the traders do, look to move out of the server room & onto the trade floor. There's still a demand for HFT talent with significant programming skills...
If being an "idiot stock trader" who makes millions is so easy, why aren't you doing it? You can push a few buttons, right?
Because profiting off the act of raping the real sector of the economy is unethical? Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
It is almost impossible to determine how a company will treat you up front, sure there are some signs you can find on your own but determining details can be hard in a job search..
I have to agree with him, previously I stayed with a company for a max of 2 years.. In all cases my performance was rated as above expectation, however in many cases I received minimal raises or non at all.. Jumping companies with more and more experience under my belt netted me huge increases in salary in many cases. It was only my last jump that was internal, as the company I work for had a senior position open up in the head office, I had to move for the roll, but yet again it was a big jump.. Now I have been getting very reasonable increases and recognition for my performance.
If you are excelling and your company is not paying you as well as others it is always well worth the effort to investigate other options.
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
They were supposed to include code in their rounding routines to skim all the half cents of all the transactions off and funnel them to a Swiss bank account!
I'm not sure the waaah replies mean to refer to their coding skills.
Personally, I find it very hard to work up much sympathy for people who waste their talents helping Goldman Sachs leach off the trading system.
Someone had to do it.
Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant tide
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine.
And no-one called us to the land
And no-one knows the wheres or whys
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb towards the light
Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can
And no-one calls us to move on
And no-one forces down our eyes
And no-one speaks and no-one tries
And no-one flies around the sun
Cloudless everyday you fall upon my waking eyes
inviting and inciting me to rise
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning
And no-one sings me lullabies
And no-one makes me close my eyes
And so I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky
Their employers, in turn, get bigger bucks for taking bigger risks than the programmers do.
the problem is, they aren't risking their money - they are risking ours.
"One such anonymous programmer points out that he was paid $150,000 per year, whereas the software he wrote was generating $100,000 per day."
You do the job, you get paid. There are plenty of jobs out there that generate (or save) companies plenty of cash. Sometimes you're lucky to get a bonus, sometimes not.
The only time I ever really felt upset about pay was one job where I was constantly putting in extra time, etc, and really working my keister to make things work. There were quite a few complains about my predecessors - who quit midstream leaving me to land in their positions - and I got a lot of compliments about how things were being straightened up (a few, including my manager, commented that I was the best employee they'd had in my dept).
Hearing that was nice, but when we absorbed another company and my workload doubled, it got a bit rough. When review time came up, I got a bit of a raise, but I had also discovered that my predecessors (the ones why I was supposedly so much of an improvement over) had made 20%+ more than I.
After months of trying to get the company to spend a bit more on quality equipment/services and add to our diminished IT team, I finally sought work elsewhere. At that point I was offered the moon: big raise, etc, but I'd already found another position. It was even a little less pay, but I still feel it was a worthwhile move (especially since it's hourly, and companies tend to avoid mistakes that require OT if they're paying for it).
I was a bit sad to move on, but I heard that after I left, they started listening to the Sr Admin (my replacement) a bit more and actually fixed a lot of the issues in the company. Hopefully they gave the guy a raise too.
Pay isn't always about cash and greed. Sometimes it's about respect. Paying people what they're worth ensures you keep them around.
However, at $150k, that's a pretty good compensation for your time and work. It's more than most coding jobs I know, and I'd guess it's fairly par for the industry. Workers exist to do a job, and that job should make or save the company money. If he doesn't like it, maybe he should go private and contract out to develop the systems he believe are worth so much.
The programmer who writes the algorithm is, in many of these firms, the main driver of profits
Incorrect, and this is the reason you (and several others) are missing the point. You are assuming (with no evidence to back up your claim) that these algorithms are essentially the "machine" that makes the money. You're completely overlooking the various infrastructure and investment that it takes to make these things happen. I don't have the energy to list the many, many components that must exist to have a successful brokerage firm, but suffice to say, it's far more than just algorithms, otherwise any programmer worth his/her salt would be making a killing on Wall Street.
Your logic is like telling Edison he doesn't deserve the bulk of profits from the light bulb
That's right! Edison wouldn't have inherently deserved the lion's share of any/all revenues derived from various companies making/selling/using his invention "the lightbulb". If he invented it, but Sylvania makes millions of them in their factories, then sells them via Sears, where they are bought by customers who install them in their homes in fixtures made by various light fixture manufacturers, and power then from various electrical utility providers, Edison should not be entitled to a piece of each part of the chain's profits.
This really isn't that difficult. As others have pointed out, it's a combination of how difficult it would be to replace a person combined with their measurable/demonstrative monetary contributions to a company that determine the salary. The issue with these programmers is that the profits seem high because this is a game of scale, not profit margin. The big brokerage firms are making big bucks on millions and millions of very tiny profit margins. However, they're also taking on all the risk, putting up all the money, and providing all of the other parts of the working machine (employees, facilities, communication, etc).
Salaried employment is mostly a dead-end deal.
Speak for yourself. There area plenty of people who are perfectly happy with the salary and bonus structure they've been able to negotiate. If this is a case of you feeling resentful because you have a job that is considered "exempt" but you feel that you're putting in more hours than you should be for your pay, then you need to negotiate (either with your current employer or with another one). This doesn't mean that any salaried position is bad by default.
I would recommend that anyone really ambitious work a salaried job in their chosen field for about 2 years (just like these guys did) and then strike out with their own company, ownership of IP and profits, etc. (just like these guys did).
And I wish you (and everyone who follows your advice) good luck. However, law of averages dictates that a whole lot of you are going to end up in some financially dire straits. Entrepreneurship isn't always the greener pasture. There are a whole lot of inherent risks and costs when one chooses to go it alone. That's not to say that it's a bad strategy, but assuming that it's better than accepting a well negotiated, salaried position with an established company is just silly, and in some cases, absolutely moronic.
Programmers tend to be libertarian dweebs who equate good code with high status in the tiny core of people who program. They can't unionize, they can't conceive of small salaries (i.e., theirs), and they have no concept of exploitation. That happens to R2D2, not programmers.
Yes, software generates millions of dollars and creates vast wealth. Programmers think this is self-evident, like Douglas Adams spelling out how to build civilizations ("Bang the rocks together.") Even my unheard of contributions generated millions of dollars. And yes, my boss took credit for my work.
Burn out, crash and burn, kiddies. It's not covered on your non-existent health insurance, either.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Heh, someone forgot his sarcasm tag....
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
the income tax of senior execs of publicly-traded companies should be indexed to the disparity between the highest-paid and lowest paid employees: the worse the difference, the higher the rates (and lower the rates at the bottom too).
Factory workers have had this same experience for centuries. Most factory workers for most of the history of industry have earned a bare subsistence wage. They work hard all day making products worth several dozen times what they are paid to make them. Meanwhile the owner of the factory will collect the lion's share of what his products sell for even if he never lifts another finger for his entire life. In the modern age, ownership of the factory is usually split up into millions of shares and distributed among thousands of individuals or other corporations, so people don't even have to know what factory they're earning money from while not lifting a finger.
Sure, the factory owners (or shareholders) say that they had to invest in the factory, which was taking a risk for them, and therefore deserve the reward...but all they did was trade on their pre-existing ownership of capital which was unjustly accumulated in the first place, and the ONLY THING they were risking was a chance of ending up in the same wretched position that all their employees were already in, guaranteed, regardless of hard work or the success or failure of the enterprise. Somehow that risk justifies reaping all the benefits.
This story is just about the same situation in the high-tech segment of the finance sector. Fortunately these programmers are rare enough that they can command salaries far above subsistence, but it's not fundamentally different from what factory workers, indeed all workers, go through, and will continue to go through as long as capitalism is the world's dominant economic system. Those who produce value get a tiny share of the proceeds.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Because you wrote USD 29.000 instead of $29,000, you are probably not American, and probably also pay a crap-ton of taxes (~50%?). You can live comfortably on that if your government provides a lot of services.
To find a comfortable living wage in a medium sized, Midwest US city, double that number - $60k won't let you live like a rock star, and you'll have to save up to buy cool high tech toys, but you can afford a small house in a good neighborhood and a car, good food to eat, an occasional vacation. You don't get everything you want on that salary, but you don't have to compromise too much either.
Double it again if you want to live in New York. 100-120k will get you a decent apartment, maybe a car (but you need one less in NY than you do elsewhere). It's tough to live on much less than that - you need to live a long way outside the city, pick a worse neighborhood, or make some other compromise to get by on less.
You want to live big? 250k minimum in New York, probably more. Most programmers don't make that - hell, most people from any walk of life don't make that. If you want to do it as a programmer, you have to take on a high-risk, potential high-reward project. Do what these guys did and start your own company, do your old bosses job better than he ever could as a simple user of your software.
What people should really care about, though, is happiness. New Yorkers tend to be bitter and disillusioned - even the ones living on 250k+. Go back to the Midwest city, and the guy making 60k might wish it was 80k, but he's putting food on the table for his family, keeping his stress level lower, and is generally happier overall. If 30k allows you to live well in your part of the world, then it is enough. Just remember never to compare sizes with a New Yorker - his is always bigger, no matter what you are comparing.
-V-
Who can decide a priori? Nobody.
-Sartre
The way these programs work is they offer bids for extremely short periods of time (less than a second) that they never intend to fill in order to goose the market down or up a little bit. They cancel the bid before it has a chance to be filled. Nobody that doesn't have direct access and have their servers basically in the same building can do this. This is already violating one of the SEC rules which says you can't post offers you don't intend to fill. Look around and you can find monitoring videos people have posted showing these enormous bids showing up for very brief periods of time and then being canceled.
The other thing they do is jump in front of customer orders again violating an SEC rule. You are willing to pay 40.10, they jump in front of you with 40.0975 (shouldn't be happening as fraction bids shouldn't be allowed) and turn around and sell it back to you at a profit.
Already over 50% of the daily trading volume is due to these HFT programs trading amongst themselves and screwing the majority of investors. They are also responsible for the market quickly falling apart and hitting circuit breakers. There have been multiple instances where one or more of the HFT algorithms went crazy and took down stocks quickly with incorrect bids (they also sometimes bid up stocks incorrectly too).
The SEC could resolve all this very easily without harming any real investor if they had the balls to stand up to JPM and Goldman Sachs:
1) All offers to buy or sell must stay active for at least 1 second before they can be canceled.
2) No trade is allowed to execute in fractions of a cent.
3) You can't have a banking charter and the government backing that comes with it if you run a trading shop. Take government backed banks back to their basic business of taking in deposits and loaning them out.
I don't know if you're officially below the poverty line, but you couldn't live comfortably on that. When I moved to NYC (and housing was cheaper) I made around $35k/year. That meant eating lots of pasta and PB&J, never having money to go out. My apartment was decent, but not great (in an outer borough). I had a roommate and barely made it by month to month.
Making ~$60k/year allowed me to finally live on my own in a small (probably ~600 sq feet) apartment, but I was still in a bad neighborhood. I could go out and buy some nice things, or I could save money, not both. $100k let me move into an equally small but nice apartment in a nicer neighborhood (still outer boroughs, not Manhattan), go out sometimes and still save some money. But I still live relatively modestly-- no fancy clothes, not a lot of expensive stuff.
NYC ain't cheap.
Who are those owners of which you speak? If they are the share holders, then look at the dividend yield. It tends to be tiny. It's not really the share holders making that much.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
In my exit interview, I told the person straight up... we're the ones providing the traders with timely data and faster calculations so that they don't have to go back to using a stubby pencil.
To be fair, I hope you included everyone else, like the people running the Data Center. After all, if those servers aren't kept cool and provided with nice, clean UPS power, neither the algorithms nor those administering the systems are going to be doing much....thus you're back to the stubby pencil. Same goes for the guys driving the trucks that deliver the servers, and take the backup tapes off site every day, without them.....stubby pencil. Let's not forget the Security folks, without them, you can't have access to the various rooms where the gear is and can't get to your equipment as you need to and thus....stubby pencil. Let's not forget about the various telecom people/providers, after all without them, the servers/algorithms wouldn't be able to talk to the market....stubby pencil.
Where does it all stop? I hear what you're saying, but you have to keep in mind that there are a LOT of moving parts to running a successful brokerage firm. Yes, IT is a very crucial part of that chain, but it's not an island.
It's like many jobs where people get paid obscene amounts of money for very little work... NOT everyone can do it... not because it's hard, but because it's largely an old-boys network and nepotism rules the day. As another example. Try getting a job as a longshoreman. That union is locked up tighter than fucking Ft Knox.
And so it says that they did the right thing: they left their crappy, thieving jobs and started their own firms. They're still only making about their old salaries, but they're calling the shots and the sky's the limit. This is why ethical capitalism RULES.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
What country is this that everyone not in management by 30 is a loser? In order to give the term some meaning, I can only imagine that you've either got a ridiculous corporate structure, or an equally ridiculous mortality rate.
It's all about who is shouldering the responsibility and the risk in the trade. If a trade goes sour, someone has to foot the bill, in this case it's the trader. The programmer, on the other hand, still gets his(her) paycheque regardless. It's the same deal with CEOs and such. Yes, the CEO makes millions, but they also bear the fiscal (and more importantly criminal) responsibility of the company. So if the company is breaking the law, it's the CEO that takes the shit for it. If the company folds, it's the CEO that has to pay off the investors. So yeah, it seems like these people get paid shitloads for doing nothing, but really they're getting paid to shoulder the risk.
In the case of these programmers, they've decided that they're OK with the risk in the face of being able to make more money. If a trade goes bad, they can be out alot of cash, but if things are good, they make more than they would have.
TL;DR: Nothing to see here, move along.
There should be a programmers union just like taxi cab unions, just like bus driver unions, etc.
Why is it that programmers are always left on the side of the road when it comes to benefits and entitlement???
Ahh -- now we see the issues more clearly. They don't trade, they don't have the guts or the stake money -- so that other guy DID produce something of value -- his money at risk, and his discretion to ignore the software when it was wrong or "didn't feel right". Believe me, trading is a full time job or you're going to get clobbered, there's a lot of homework involved, and judgement that may take years to hone.
After all, if you really wanted to hear some whining from programmers, how about if their pay was cut when a software glitch [b]lost[/b] 100k a day?
I use a version of that screed whenever (frequently) some broker calls and wants to trade my account, with me taking all the risks, including paying him to do it. They always have glowing commentary about how great they are. In which case, I ask -- they why aren't you so rich as not to need my couple millions to play with? If you're that good -- you'd be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, right? Even starting with only a little bit of money. That "click" I often get in response is quite gratifying.
Nothing hurts more than pointing out the simple and obvious facts.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Well, that guy will probably won't be head of a multi-million dollar making investment house. He will get there only after working (successfully) in the industry for a couple of decades. And if he gets there after only a few years, then I guess he is really good at what he does.. and thus not part of the usually party going MBAs -> less replaceable.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
I agree, and he knows too much now, he will have to be eliminated.
The reality is, the amount of revenue derived partially from these programmers has absolutely nothing to do with what their compensation is or should be.
The amount of revenue derived from these programmers also has absolutely nothing to do with how much money the company deserves to make, so why not split the undeserved money evenly?
Agreed. It varies not just from company to company, but also team to team within most larger companies. How well you are treated financially depends not just on the company, but on your luck in bosses, how much the company values your position, how well you sell yourself (don't be a prima donna, but do make your contributions obvious), and myriad other things that cannot necessarily be judged ahead of time.
One good starting point is to ask to meet some of your future coworkers, then ask how many years they have been working there. If the answers are mostly or exclusively low single digits, you should probably look elsewhere. That said, even this isn't always sufficient.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"No, they are not "sucking money out of the system". They are CIRCULATING money in the system."
Except that we see the statistics that 10% of our population has 2/3 of the wealth. It's NOT circulating. That's why the middle class is disappearing today.
From Wikipedia....
"In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth and the top 1% owned 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth.[14]""
So, how is that circulating again?
-T
I have a few points that are worth considering when taking this article with a grain of salt. My fellow programmers probably won't want to hear this stuff but it's true. I used to work for a large investment firm (3rd largest at the time I was working there).
a. it takes a hell of a lot more work, experience, and intelligence to get a CFA(chartered financial analyst) than a programming degree. The CFA is required if you are going to be a fund manager. Think of it as a much harder bar exam. Most people that manage to pass it have advanced degrees in economics and/or finance from an ivy league school.
b. Half the CFAs and traders I knew, could write code in their sleep. One of the more successful ones developed a whole suite of tools he used, in C. They can do your job if they have to, it's more lucrative for them to wheel and deal than deal with debugging and implementation issues. It boils down to what is the best use of their time. If every programmer disappeared tomorrow, they could learn programming and still get it done. They are Really Smart(tm)
c. CFAs and traders pretty much blow their career if they screw up and lose a billion dollars. A programmer can simply find a new job if their bug rates are too high. They also have a QA team to double check their work. You can see if software will or won't work easily. To know whether or not a market strategy will work requires a ton of research and risk. They are rewarded based on the amount of risk they take and the rewards they get when they are successful. When they fail big, they are truly effed. Your risk level as a programmer is nearly 0.
d. Their ivy league educations ensure that they have an old boys network with lots of friends in the same position to help with getting the best deals. If you don't have this, you aren't ever going to make the kind of money they do. The fact that they have this is invaluable to the firm they work for, and their clients. Hate to say this, but us programmers are replaceable. In the current job market we're a dime a hundred by comparison. Go ahead, quit. There will be 20 people lined up for your job, killing each other to get it, for less money than you make.
Bottom line, if you are unhappy these people make millions of dollars and you don't, go get your CFA. You won't beat them. The only way to play with the big boys is to become one. Getting your CFA and having connections is more valuable than landing an NFL player contract, and just as tough, if not tougher, because it takes talent and connections, not just talent. Good luck with that! If you managed to get your CFA, it's pretty likely without the connections, you'd end up as a research analyst making less than you do as a programmer.
Expecting to cash in on what *they* do with your software is a little unrealistic. If you wrote the same software tools for people without their talent and connections, it would be useless. You are basically like a trainer to an NFL athlete. It's the same kind of royalty->serf relationship. You are replaceable, they are one in 250,000. You can't do what they do and they would still be able to do what they do without you, just like a lawyer or a doctor.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
The programmer, on the other hand, still gets his(her) paycheque regardless.
Because companies have never gone out of business and been unable to pay their employees for time they've already worked. That's never happened in the history of corporations.
If the company folds, it's the CEO that has to pay off the investors.
Wait...since when do CEOs have to pay investors when a company goes under? I'm pretty sure the investors are just out whatever they invested, and that's that. The CEO is hired and collects a paycheck just like any other employee. Sometimes, if they get out after the damage is done but before the company goes all the way under, CEOs even get golden parachutes.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
HF trading is going to euin the stock market. Arguments of the need for more fluidity in the market are absurd. It effectively syphons money from actual traders into the pockets of a few big players.The fact is that a VERY small % of the market is able to take advantage of a tool that the rest have no hope of ever using.
I can only hope it gets banned before it screws up everything.
Uh no. The value of their labor was undervalued.
That's the point of the article. $150k is not good compensation for something that is generating $36 million on a yearly basis. They are making less than 1/2% on their work.
Kind of puts it into prospective.
Also note: part of the price for being a high-frequency programmer is generally living and working in New York City. It ain't all roses.
Part of the price???? You mean part of the benifit. There is no where better to live than NYC in America.
The programmer who writes the algorithm is, in many of these firms, the main driver of profits
Incorrect, and this is the reason you (and several others) are missing the point. You are assuming (with no evidence to back up your claim) that these algorithms are essentially the "machine" that makes the money.
Not really. I'm treating the algorithm like the engine of a car. The whole car is the "machine". Without the other parts (chassis, wheels, etc.) you don't have a car. But you still can't argue that it's not the engine that makes the car move. I'm arguing that the algorithm is not the entire machine but a crucial part, whereas a bank teller is like the backseat upholstery.
You're completely overlooking the various infrastructure and investment that it takes to make these things happen. I don't have the energy to list the many, many components that must exist to have a successful brokerage firm, but suffice to say, it's far more than just algorithms, otherwise any programmer worth his/her salt would be making a killing on Wall Street.
I'm not overlooking any such thing. My point was that you could replace nearly any bank teller with nearly any other (barring absurdities like hiring a chronic drunk who insults and abuses customers) and make roughly the same level of profits, whereas you can't replace the algorithm with any old algorithm off the shelf without causing great changes (perhaps orders of magnitude) in profits. Yes, all that infrastructure is necessary. But all that infrastructure does not create profit by itself. The infrastructure is built to enable the use of the algorithm. So it would be absurd to say that the programmer deserves 100% of the profit, because they couldn't make the profit without that infrastructure, but equally absurd to say they deserve no higher share than a bank teller, because the programmer's work is far less replaceable than the bank teller's is.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
These whiny children need to put things in perspective.
RTFA before you start slinging insults.
Do NOT move to the US. Here, we use dots as decimal separators, so your annual income would be only 29 dollars even.
They generate profits by skimming money from lag.
There are always lap dogs for management sniffing around their ankles begging for scraps. Even in slave days, there were those that would sell out their own to work up on the porch instead of in the fields.
Fortunately, most people have more self-respect.
It's not just the "high-frequency" programmers that are starting to figure out that the growing divide between those that work for a living and those that own for a living is not only bad for their own lives, but doesn't bode well for society as a whole.
The answer as usual, is "organize". Don't worry about your job getting sent overseas, because if they could have saved a few nickles by sending your job to Bangalore, they'd have done it already.
There's a reason that the Chamber of Commerce, the Republican Party and big business has been fighting an all-out war against organized labor: because it makes them afraid. Corporate profits are at record levels and they still look for ways to cut the work force, screw the current workers any way they can. Every several decades it seems, people who work for a living have to stand up and give the elite ownership class a less in social responsibility. The world and the people in it do not exist simply for their benefit as they seem to believe.
You are welcome on my lawn.
An honest question, or two.
Do programmers have to have spelling abilities? Do they at least have to be proficient when it comes time to proof their code? Or do they get left out of the millions because somebody else has to do it for them? Or should they just take 6 figure salaries and be content while somebody else perfects their product?
Honest questions. (entermediate) as a typo in code probably makes the code nonfunctional for the purpose it's intended to be used for (does intermediate ever actually occur in code)?
Learn how to spell (or proof your rant) and maybe you can come off as someone in need of everyone's sympathy.
I love the conversation.
not high, just average, for IT
I wasn't born to an Ivy league family with connections. I had to get my job through good old fashioned interviewing--not nepotism.
Camping on quad since 1996.
How much of that salary is going offshore (outside of US)? I would wager a significantly larger percentage than if the money were more evenly distributed.
Suppose the money were divided evenly among those beneath him, and he took an even or slightly higher share. I'm not arguing if this is fair or not. I'm just arguing about circulation and systems.
So instead of one guy heading to Rio, they all head to the Jersey Shore... More money for the local economy yes? More money more evenly distributed among all involved yes? Greater localized ROI in local economic system yes? Multiplier effect for said economic system yes? This all sounds really good to me...
I'm not sure I'm much concerned about circulating wealth across global economic systems. We have enough issues right here, and there are even more vultures out there...
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
The law of averages also produced very average results.
There are simply cases where people and the environment their in don't match up. In the valley there's a sufficient amount of start ups with cash out there that can attract those folks suitable for that kind of environment.
They're often highly technical and leaders in their areas of expertise quite often and have that option of staying with a company or leaving. I value the stability of a job, but in general most of the work is of a 'sustaining engineering' capacity and isn't suitable for very senior level engineers that can do principal engineering of various sorts. Your career stagnates and your overall value as an engineer to other companies declines as you become more and more of a bug monkey.
The strategy of moving from company to company is effective if that can be used as fundamental manner to promote yourself upward in the technical food chain. It's difficult for folks that are risk adverse but I find those folks to be pretty fucking boring.
My two cents
This is supported by a significant amount of labor economics research. (At least the pay part). The majority of increase in income comes nearer to the start of the career than the end and from changes in jobs/companies rather than promotion in place.
As for the behavior of the companies: If something is promised get it in writing. If they don't want to give it to you in writing you were never going to get it in the first place. Corporations are not people and don't have memories outside of what is written down and can be discussed in a courtroom. Any individual who promises you anything can get hit by a truck or replaced with a moron and then promise is gone.
If you are so good at writing trading algorithms, quit and run your own trades.
Your Econ-101 course would have been improved by including a copy of Animal Farm. In the lost epilogue, the pigs mint coinage to invest German efficiency into everything they were doing already.
The principle you seem to be ranting on here is that voluntary transactions create wealth, no matter how the transaction is instrumented (coins, jars of pebbles, jiggling twins).
Monopoly is the word we use to describe the situation where voluntary rubs noses with indentured servitude. If there's only one place to purchase food, well, no-one is forcing you to chose survival.
In high speed computing one tends to compute bisection bandwidth: given any way of partitioning the system, what is the maximum bandwidth across the partition boundaries.
The concept of monopoly is similarly fungible. The banking industry has sliced up the economic system so that one partition (the high velocity insiders) have access to first-mover advantage, and everyone else doesn't. One term in what constitutes voluntary trade has been supremely tilted in favour of a group that isn't working nearly as hard as they ought to relative to the resources they command, even if it does, as you point out, greatly enrich Columbian farmers who would otherwise have to grow vegetables.
If the glorious concentration of wealth directed equated to aggregate productivity, Russia would be a model economy.
I will say your recitation of why money in and of itself can't be blamed was superbly rendered.
On the other hand, somehow you didn't manage to notice that typing the query "apple suicide" into Google no longer brings up a fairy tale: it brings up Foxccon in the "I feel lucky" position.
Do you know why Kevin Cronin thinks it is bad? I just want to take this down to the next level of detail.
I have seen arguments that high fequance trading tends to create volatility? [This assumes that the stock market in a nonlinear system with multiple equilibrium prices - and that the HF trading causes the prices to rapid move/overshoot the equliberium price. [I think this is a good assumption but other people disagree]]
So, from my perspective, I think the good outweights the bad. What is the downside? [Or is the increased volatility sufficent for you?]
The downside is HFT firms siphon capital from markets while providing trivial value. Full stop.
While I don't think anyone is going to be able to stop high frequency trading, they should be taxed at upwards of 90% (vs industries where value is created, like manufacturing and services, who you'd want to tax at a much lower rate).
The stock traders make what they do because they know what buttons to push and when. If they push the wrong button at the wrong time, they stand to lose millions for their clients and themselves. These programs have no idea as to when to buy, sell or hold. All they do is retrieve data and analyze it into reports. It's up to the trader to know what to do with it.
If being an "idiot stock trader" who makes millions is so easy, why aren't you doing it? You can push a few buttons, right?
Go learn what high frequency trading is (this is the type of trading and programmers mentioned in the article) and you will be amazed.
Those programs has nothing to do with reports or assisted discretionary trading - they are getting (paid) preview on market queue, then they find out what the limits of those bids are and exploit them within miliseconds (you mention deciding when to hold - ha!). Essentialy, they are getting into the middle of the trade and profit by forcing buyer paying more than otherwise necessary or lowering sellers profit. Not only these techniques damage market, they also (probably) are behind market flash crash that happened on 6th May.
Btw.: possible because of cooperative money-driven government.
As a programmer you need to stop whining. There will be people making money out of your code or using your code.
If money making is your goal you should quit programming and go into a money making job. And possibly die early of boredom or nervous maladies.
Do what you do best, don't whine but also don't be a fool.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Welcome to the real world, where economics is not a zero-sum game. Just because somebody has more doesn't mean somebody else has less. Peddle your Marxism elsewhere.
To explain why your invocation of the term "Marxism" is incorrectly connected to the idea that economics is a zero-sum game, I refer you to one of the finer comments on economics (and, specifically, Marx) that Slashdot has seen.
"There is nothing in Marxism implying that transactions are zero-sum. Marx himself, in his sections on economics, is practically orthodox Adam Smith..."
(Of course, like the term "Socialism", when most people use it in current political discourse, it may be that the poster doesn't mean anything particularly well-defined by it, it's just a convenient term for something Those Other People Who Are Wrong And Ruining Things believe).
Tweet, tweet.
There are always people above you who are paid because they have to manage intangibles. They may be good, they may be crappy... in the end, it's all where the buck stops. I would take figures to be a programmer any day. To have all of my work be a single function of time would be awesome.
In my last job, I was frequently given impossible deadlines for vague tasks and insufficient resources. There was no such thing as overtime, there was no such thing as parceling off some of the work to some group. it was do or die.
Managing people and projects is always easy until you have to be the one to do it.
Do I think there are plenty of middle managers that aren't worth their salaries? Hell yeah. Executives too. But don't go around thinking they have an easy job.
The software I wrote kills thousands of people everyday, but I can be killed only once,sigh...
So somehow people with industrial strength educations, most of them Masters level, or higher, graduates from BigName Schools with *years* of study in Statistics, Modelling, and Programming are equivalent to Bank Tellers?
I'm not seeing how your analogy works at all. You could replace a bank teller with any monkey who can count, the same cannot be said about the guys in these positions.
The 'tellers role while vital isn't critical. In the event of a "teller crisis" the bank would survive. These high frequency trading companies though are built SOLELY on their systems ability to execute trades faster than the next firm...and you can't do that without extremely educated and talented people doing the technical work.
Hoooo boy, the old "Masters of the Universe" theory.
No, just no.
If these guys were so smart we wouldn't be having problems with stock market crashes. If they really were good at what they did it would be their CLIENTS getting rich...not just them.
Also, they ALL consistently get their asses kicked by random stock pickers.
Here's an example: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/paul-farrells-commentary-chimp-99-champ-makes-monkey-of-wall-street
Here is another, newer, one: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/market-dispatches.aspx?post=1548081
So please, stop with the "knowing what buttons to push" stuff. Most of these guys are WORSE, or arguably no better, at their job than a chimpanzee would be.
Why don't they work for themselves?
I'm not about to sell software worth $100k per day for $150k a year.
When I left Hot Topic, they made me sign something saying I'd never talk to the press about goth and mention that I had worked at Hot Topic. Doh! Back button! Back button!
Now that you are in a senior position, do you insure that people below you are generously paid? How much of a pay increase would you be willing to forgo in order to reward the people underneath you who contribute to your success?
-rd
So somehow people with industrial strength educations, most of them Masters level, or higher, graduates from BigName Schools with *years* of study in Statistics, Modelling, and Programming are equivalent to Bank Tellers?
No, not at all, but nice attempt to deflect the issue to a completely different argument.
I'm not seeing how your analogy works at all...These high frequency trading companies though are built SOLELY on their systems ability to execute trades faster than the next firm...and you can't do that without extremely educated and talented people doing the technical work.
While I agree with you that the essential component to these HFT Firms is their ability to execute trades at faster and faster speeds, this does not mean that those people who write the algorithms are the only component of that very finely tuned machine. More importantly, these very important and often educated people are entitled to a better salary than others in their field (which they are receiving), but to expect to get a cut of all the company's profits is ludicrous. If my purposefully exaggerated Bank Teller example it too much to get your head around, let's try something else from my comment. In my own example, I run a large Data Center for a major IT company that makes literally millions of dollars per hour. I am very good at what I do, and guys with my experience do not grow on trees. Is it reasonable that I should get a cut of all the revenue coming through the facility? You' can't replace me with just any average joe either.
Look, the point I'm trying to make is that it sounds like these particular programmers might have a bloated sense of importance, and might not be considering the whole picture. If I'm wrong, hey, they can all go out and start hugely successful brokerage houses, and we'll have hundreds of AIG's out there. I'll gladly eat some crow when they all succeed. Or maybe, just maybe, they're not seeing the whole picture.
In a large cooperation you have a communications department, legal department, marketting and sales arguing about spelling.
Each sentence is the result of months of meetings between those above (and those who have power and "feel it should be more like this") as a programmer you just copy paste what the copywriters hand to you.
You just code and often are the endpoint of "request/desire" to product. Priorities over different projects are determined by things like "who has most power" (internal political games), available money, budget, how many people depends on the work, the expected output, timing with other marketting projects (if you roll out a new "product", copy needs to be in sync, media stations like radio, television, flyers, posters, ... all needs to be done beautifully overnight)
As member of your team, you take on projects, they get a bit scattered around (more frequent in webdev, stocksoftware has a more rigid planning which gets VERY flexible on the wealth of the client or what the sales promised to be possible and pens are held above paper) and negotiated with different departments often based on internal politics (those who can throw around the most weight get most done in larger coorperations); "we saw this/want this/have a go for a project with this budget". You negotiate what is possible, what you believe you can achieve and is possible while expectations are created and consolidate on a idea:
"This is what we are going to make, you told us it will take so long and we can budget it like that. After that date we'll await delivery of the project."
After having created the expectations (don't put them too high or too defined, or you'll get a shitstorm over you) you start planning out your work, and get to it. By this time, they'll have changed their minds again as they have been "thinking about it and ways to improve". (repeat first couple of meetings, try to send the "guy who wants to be manager" as much as possible to these mindless and useless discussions: it's a political and psychological sushing game in those meetingrooms anyway)
After that, you'll start work, while these meetings are still going on, once in a while someone remembers a meeting 2 years ago where there was something decided (and got overruled or actively forgotten the week after), or someone suddenly is pulling alarmbells because they've been patiently waiting for their projects to finish and it's "the DEADLINE", but never communicated the project ever started with your team.
So basically, you don't have much time to "proof" your code; "it needs to work A YEAR AGO (when we didn't notify your team), don't care how, make it work", you send it back to a test-team, send it back for validation (often because you don't have the bigger picture) and get in a feedback loop until you get an approval to push it into production. Even in larger teams you are face to face and have interaction, or at least in email (with India fe.), so you just make sure your code isn't a mess blocking others to keep the flow going smoothly (everybody knows how it works, certain type of mistakes someone makes are accepted like personal interpretations of code, pragmatic choices, acceptance or limitations of the frameworks, 3rd party software, ...)
As a good webdev, you're comforting people more and acting as an intermediate communication channel while you try to get round to development as well. (for that purpose, use alot of google.)
If they wanted to make the big money for their work, they should of gone into the music industry.
Be seeing you...
That is a great post, and a point well made.
In the case of the article, the developers are producing something that is incredibly valuable. They are wise to take that IP and leverage it.
It only adds liquidity and depth when you don't need it, and makes the market more illiquid when you need extra liquidity. (The HFTs will all pull out when there is a market lockup and make the situtation even worse since it's hard to skim pennies in situations where there is general falling across the board. Since they pull out the price drop accelerates, see the May 6, 2010 drop of 1014 points in a matter of minutes when all the HFT pulled out for an example of this.)
There is no justification for it over normal trading except to skim pennies from normal buyers and sellers of stocks. Computerization allows for more refined pricing and faster trading. That doesn't mean you want it to run wild.
Kevin Cronin left REO Speedwagon to become a financial parasite?
I used to make six figures. I worked really hard for it, and I thought I was someone who deserved six figures. Times changed and I don't make six figures any more. I miss the money but not the stress. People who make that kind of money should not assume the will always have it, or that they deserve it. Things can change in the blink of an eye. I would be happy today with five figures. Money is a poor thing to base your self-worth on, but we tend to do it. How much we make does have something to do with our worth to the businesses that employ us, and how they leverage our skills in the market. It is a partnership when things are working right, and programmers don't usually have to pay when a customer cancels an order. Being part of overhead and having less risk gets you less money.
Stop whining guys. Isn't it obvious that employers prefer to hire wage slaves?
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Such programs are straightforward implementations of not-so-subtle mathematical formulae.
A first year CS student could do it as a midterm project.
I would do it for fun and for free.
Getting a six figure salary for such a trivial and essentially harmful pastime is an extravagant privilege.
That depends on how many hours they're working.
There are jobs I wouldn't do for $150,000.
"Hell, the data center I run makes millions every hour, but I don't expect that I should make 7 or 8 figures because of it."
Well I think you should, and you should get one of those fluffy shiny heavy gold parachute dealies too and some authentic Cuban cigars (the huge stogie kind that smell good) as long as you give me one.
Thanks (geez, I wish you were the boss). I promise you, if I can wrangle such a deal, I'll send you some of those Cubans.
This picture summarizes the entire subject of payment and skill needed: http://pics.nase-bohren.de/expertsneedtoknow.jpg
Hell, the data center I run makes millions every hour, but I don't expect that I should make 7 or 8 figures because of it.s.
The data centre you work at makes at least $17 520 000 000 a year?
These programs have no idea as to when to buy, sell or hold. All they do is retrieve data and analyze it into reports. It's up to the trader to know what to do with it.
That's exactly what they DON'T do. These programs buy and sell on their own, without any help from a human trader. It would hardly be high frequency trading if every trade had to be vetted by a human first.
That is not new. Welcome to capitalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value
I've worked in high frequency trading for over four years. There is a lot of misinformation out there. Partly because they're secretive. In terms of programming, I've given many interviews to many coders. The pay depends on the kinds of programming - backoffice, actual strategies, etc. Someone who actually codes strategies usually gets a huge bonus. The base salary is pretty much irrelevant. If these coders are worth there salt but not being remunerated properly, they should move on.
Or maybe a ridiculous percentage of frustrated people.
Honestly only a complete fool is loyal to the company. Because the company is never EVER loyal to you.
Neither is a rock. Why people keep expecting loyalty, a quality of humanity, from something that isn't human is beyond me. Corporations and government just look at the numbers (even if they don't actually understand them). When you're dealing with either, that's exactly what you should do, too. Don't expect humane treatment from something that isn't human.