Ah man, this is a post I've wanted to write for a while...
So since around April this year, after my current role turned into a joke, I spent a lot of time working out where I wanted to focus on in my career in tech - where could I go that would make sense that would fit my skillset, and provide a suitable challenge. It turned out that the best idea would be to try to get into one of the HFT/Algo trading companies. I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people, both inside and outside the industry and it seemed like it would be a good fit for my personality (I can be quite intense!!).
However, they're renowned for being notoriously difficult to get into, all of them pay gigantic salaries and the competition to get in is huge, so my starting point - already being in my forties with no finance experience, no PHD, degree or even A-levels, was a difficult one. (I got expelled from school lol)
It's funny because one of the firms (I'm still talking to and expect a decision on Monday) actually loved the fact I'd been booted out of school and had no formal education, they're so used to everybody being from Cambridge and Oxford. When some 'bloke' from the midlands turns up, it is perhaps a breath of fresh air - and not something they see very often, and perhaps there's a bit of an underdog effect - or somebody punching way above their weight, which they seem to really like.
Either way making the grade was going to be tough, very tough. In May I initially got interviews for 2x firms, (both large, established trading firms) got to the on-site and final stage in each, but missed out on one role due to simply not being ready or being at the right level, then missed out on the second one - as it just wasn't a good fit, but I impressed them - I was just the wrong combination of skills - (fair enough).
Ended up going for a third smaller company in July - aced the first 2x phone screens, and half of the on-site, then I ended up with a weird interviewer who wanted to torture me with nonsense scenarios engineered to **** you up and it all went a bit wrong - again right at the final hurdle, so I got rejected for that one too.
By this point, I'd simultaneously learnt a huge amount of stuff from the first 3x interviews, which I'd used as a basis for more research and to level up - I knew where my weak spots were and I knew what to tweak, so I basically did as little as I could at work (things were going south, no money, redundancies, no strategy, just a **** up not worth my time) - whilst studying hard on filling in the knowledge gaps, and working on my problem solving skills.
Then I got hit up by one of the most prestigious firms for a role in HPC (high performance computing), did 11x interviews for that over 13 weeks including an on-site and a final interview last week with one of their head honchos, feedback was awesome - but they were really dragging their heels along, they seemed to be just going slow - but constantly updating me and still keeping me in the loop (which is how they normally operate according to the recruiter) I found out, I was right at the top of their list - so getting an offer was close.
Then last week I got hit up by one of the other firms of similar size and profile, - another top player who wanted to talk, when they found out I was at the borderline-offer stage with the other firm they rushed me through the process (3x phone screens and a full day on-site which was yesterday) was a super tough day, I got battered - but I held up till the end, stuck to the game plan and went with it.
Aaaaaand I got the job
Entertainingly the other firm has found out about the offer, and is how rushing head over heels suffering from FOMO ready for Monday where they're apparently going to 'get their **** together' so I could well have a second offer on the table at some point on Monday.
It's going to be a difficult choice, I don't want to reveal too much - but both roles are actually completely different, in different parts of the world, doing totally different things... Both are paying insane levels of comp (3-4x my current comp) - levels I never thought I'd even get near, with the capacity for it to grow exponentially if I stay with either firm.
So yesterday was a good day, that hopefully draws an end to what has been a brutal, frightening, enlightening and difficult last 6 months..
But what did I learn?
- Effort equals reward, I did this fair and square with no AI or Chat GPT, I already had lots of experience from other prestigious tech companies outside of finance - but part of the success was to experience the failure first, then draw on that to work out where the gaps were - then focus on making those gaps into strengths.
- These firms care less about what you know and more how you think, they're not interested in walking-textbooks, but more interested in how you break a problem down - even if you can't solve it, the approach to the problem is what they're interested in.
- The trading firms are not what I expected, I expected huge loud alpha males shambling around, lots of egos and silly hair cuts - the opposite was true, they seemed to me to be more like tech companies than trading firms, lots of very decent reasonable happy people.
- FOMO is a real thing in this game, if one or more of these firms find out that you're talking to another firm and it's going well - they'll be all over you and rush you through the process, to try and capitalise on the interest.
- Having huge experience at a FAANG company can put you at a disadvantage, I found out that some of these firms filter out people who've spent a lot of time at places like Amazon or Facebook - because they become institutionalised and can't think for themselves, which is interesting.
- No blue-sky thinkers, none of these firms have like 'super-duper architects' or people who just sit around getting paid crazy money to dream up futuristic ideas, everyone gets their hands dirty and the orgs are very flat.
- These firms are very hard to get into at the moment, a couple of years ago they were screaming for new staff - but right now they've tightened their belts right up and there's an abundance of talent on the market, so getting a first conversation with them is very difficult.
- The offices of these firms are incredible places, **** working from home, they have like restaurants, gyms, gaming rooms - one of them had a damn ski simulator in the office (I mean really...
) and one of the firms has a vendor with free macbooks, bose headphones and stuff inside - just help yourself.. - wtf? (But when said firm made $2Bn in pure profit last year, I'm not suprised)
So yeah - super happy right now to finally get to this point! I potentially have a hard decision ahead choosing between the two firms, but for this weekend I'm just gonna chill!
