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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."
"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?
$60000??
My brother in law drives a coal truck and is on $140000 a year for four days a week work (12 hour shifts).
His meals and accommodation are paid for and he's flown there and home once a fortnight.
Not bad for someone who would be regarded as white trash by most (uneducated, four kids didn't, finish high school and yet earns more then most college graduates)...
I'm starting to think in my old age that Uni / College is for the most part the 21st century version of indentured servitude.
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.
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
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
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.