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Ask HN: Extremely High Paying C++ Jobs?

2 points by jaywalker ↗ HN
I am not sure whether this would be an interesting topic for wanna-be entrepreneurs of HN but I don't know of any other place with such brilliant skills. The question is, "Does it make sense to try one's luck with one of the extremely high paying C++ jobs?" I am referring to FX programming and writing automated trading software. They are the best paid programmers as far as I know.

I am reasonable at C++. But I am a bit skeptical about their high pays: Why is it hard for them to find skilled C++ programmers in the FX domain?

4 comments

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nolite
If you're good enough, its worth a shot. They often want people who can tweak a kernel finely enough to shave off microseconds of execution time though, and you're under constant time pressure. Not everyone can work like that
timrobinson
I don't work in FX specifically, but I've worked in various other areas in finance and trading technology [1]. Potentially off-putting factors I can think of:

- Poor working environment. Typically you'll be answering to traders, who are demanding at best, and come from a range of technical and non-technical backgrounds.

- Long working hours, with the potential for weekend work. Presumably not dissimilar to an entrepreneurial lifestyle, except that you're working for somebody else's firm.

- The areas with the most potential for earning, such as algorithmic trading, tend to have a large proportion of their pay in a performance-related bonus, so there's an element of risk involved: it's not free money. Certain top developers invest their own money, giving them even more risk and potential payoff.

Despite this, there's normally plenty of applicants when a job becomes available. For me, the most common reason for not hiring somebody has been a lack of technical skills; in the UK at least, the demand for expert C++ developers in finance definitely outweights the supply.

[1] There's been tough periods, relating to some or all of the above points, but overall I wouldn't do anything differently: every day I get to work with bright people on interesting projects.

da288
From the point of vew of graduate jobs, becoming a dev in Quant or Algo is definitely a pretty high paid start in line with other IB Front Office (£50k ish). That said, I don't know how well Google pays grad software engineers.
jaywalker
It's not just UK; there is a huge market in Singapore as well.