Software Engineer • Current Employee
Pros: - Feels a bit more like a tech company than an HFT company. Huge tech culture. Talks about the latest tech. Uses the latest tech. Colleagues are interested in implementing tech the right way rather than just the fastest way, thus causing less headaches down the line. - Free lunch and snacks. Three options each day. Two with meat and one vegan option. The vegan option is only for vegans/vegetarians. Catered food, not cooked on site. - Very friendly people. - Decent work life balance and a lot of flexibility. - Two work from home days per week. - Very good compensation by Australian standards for tech, although compensation is low for the HFT industry. - Base heavy compensation, which helps with cashflow and if the company doesn't make as much profit in one year we aren't out of luck. Bonus depends more on your contributions and their impact than firm performance. - Pays out a pro-rated bonus for your first year at the normal bonus time. - Will pay out a very long non-compete if you quit, including bonus. Although for some roles they will waive the non-compete entirely so you can start at your new role early. - Smart colleagues - Internal training - Option to move around the firm to other roles - Smaller firm at least in the Sydney office (not so much in the main office in the US). Easier to get to know everyone.
Cons: - While compensation is high for software engineers in general in Sydney, it's at the bottom end for HFT firms. If you have the skills HFT firms need, there are other options in Sydney that pay as much as double if not more. Although these other firms may not have as good of a culture. Compensation is comparable or slightly lower than what the same tier of software engineers could get at tech companies in the US.
- HFT firms in general have their own way of doing things, and their own problems to solve, that differ from how tech firms do things and what problems they solve. If you work in this industry for a long time, you might be specialized and it might be difficult to go back to the tech industry.
- You have to install a management cert on your phone to access company chats.
- With the smaller company size in Sydney, there are fewer opportunities open to move around the company even though they are very open to you moving around.