Switching from HFT DQA role to PBC SDE

So, I finally landed an offer with a product company as an SDE after months of struggle as a fresher. I hail from a circuital branch of the old IITs. Campus placements were difficult this year, so while I did interview at some good product companies (Microsoft, Amex, etc.), luck didn't favour me and I had tsettle up with a trading role with a low pay. (Other story why I decided to apply here in the first place) Most of the news articles floating around fucked up placements at IITs are in fact true and I decided to try my hands at off-campus placements only to realise how difficult it is to get even your profile noticed (yes, even with a tier-1 college). So this is what I did which I believe can help freshers land a job in this difficult market: 1) Simply applying on LinkedIn esp. via easy apply won't work. There's literally thousands of applicants within a day for a job posting. So try to stand out among the crowd. 2) Draft an excellent resume. Add things that you believe you can explain to the interviewer (doesn't matter if you've worked a lot on it, the interview is just an hour of you trying to make the interviewer believe the guy knows his stuff). 3) Know your strengths- are you good at DSA or are you good at dev. Startups would demand dev skills majorly, product companies would require DSA knowledge. 4) Start reaching out to people - very senior level people, HRs, Hiring Managers, people directly in touch with Hiring Managers, etc. Dm them on LinkedIn, cold email, and keep following up. In the case of early stage startups, directly reach out to the CTO/CEO. Sometimes, the jobs just don't get posted publicly. 5) Don't lose hope. I've had days when I used to get a headache thinking of the future and days when I had multiple interviews on the same day. The market is just tough, you're good enough and things might take time, but you'll definitely make it through. I got interviews at a couple of HFTs, and a few good product companies and got an offer.

I got laid off in December. I want to keep my head high and have decided to retire just after 6 years in the industry. AMA

Always wondered what does the work comprise exactly? Does one do maths all day or little coding with maths? Are the high paying jobs really that stressful? If we are looking to switch from SDE to quant roles, what to focus on? TIA. P.S. From the OAs of some high-end quant roles it seems that they really get into the nitry gritty of a language like C++ and focus on lots of maths, and not much DSA. Do correct me if am wrong.

I have had the privilege of getting into a Software Developer role straight out of college into an HFT firm. It's been 1 and a half years here. I feel career paths are very different within HFT and any Web based company. Here, my day to day job involves writing low latency stuff and also optimizing existing code. But it always feels like I'm working on basic stuff using simple DS and simple algos. Just that the code writing speed also matters as we want to test the strategy live ASAP. The growth isn't much here so I'd probably switch. My concern also increases because I don't know if I can grow well in this role/ path. My idea of a web based firm is that as a junior, I'd do the same simple stuff. But as I grow in a role, I'd start working on scaling systems efficiently. I think I would like to explore this and see how I like it. But also, I like working in finance, pricing the markets, market making with the right strategies. So maybe I also want to be a Quant researcher or a trader. I know I'm young and probably overthinking this, you all must have too. I want to try to provide as much value as I can to any firm as I feel at the end of the day, my compensation would anyways be tied to it. I just want to see how others would navigate this. I'd probably like to get a masters degree soon. So, I'm also trying to figure out if I should do a masters in some quant field or a standard computer science degree. So much confusion! Thanks for any help!

There is a great insecurity in service companies that we are not competent enough to switch to other companies . Especially TCS. If you were such a person in the past and if you managed to switch companies, how did you do it? What technology are you currently working on? Tell us about your journey.

Hey everyone, What is the Watercooler for: a place to hang around and chat just about anything - without having a specific topic to discuss. Also sorry I had a late night yesterday and hence creating this a bit late today 😅 Look forward to hearing from y'all :)

Hey everyone , I am currently working in a consulting company with most work being in sql in snowflake and databricks and python. I wanna switch to sde or data engineer role. Does anyone have experience how can I switch. It seems like analyst in profile is not good. I am already trying to do DSA again. Oh yeah 1 year exp 🙃

Hey , I want to transition into hfts . I have decent experience in the trading system and will have more experience iyn next 1 year. At that point I wanna make the switch. I also have a good experience in c++. Can anyone suggest what I can do to increase my chances.