Since the beginning of 2021, we’ve been talking about the strength of the hiring market and rising salaries for just about everyone. Looking back at the last couple of quarters, I wrote “white hot” and “gold rush” among other things describing this market. The strong market continues, but we’re seeing signs that last year’s frenzy has cooled:
A division at a major investment bank with aggressive hiring goals has filled their quota and is reassessing new hires
A large FinTech has paused hiring to absorb the large number of recent hires
Compensation is no longer steadily ticking up. Salaries jumped significantly last year as competition for talent was intense. However, there has been a reset to a new norm, and we don’t see continued rapid escalation in salaries
Many companies have been very successful in hiring over the past year. By raising compensation and recruiting aggressively, firms have managed to attract talent. Larger firms have been slower to adjust what they can offer, weighed down by a large workforce that may now be underpaid (see below).
I’m sure many people reading this are wondering where their increase is. If you’ve been a loyal employee and remained at the same firm for several years, don’t you deserve to be “marked to market” by your current employer? The fact of the matter is that many firms are reactive rather than proactive when adjusting salaries. Firms simply can’t afford to give hundreds or thousands of employees significant raises. My advice to you: If you haven’t seen your salary go up significantly over the past couple of years, make sure to have a constructive conversation with your boss. I’m hearing that the “sorry I can’t but we’ll try next year” message has been replaced by “let me see what I can do.” And if that doesn’t work, be proactive, manage your career, test the market, and find your value.
Regional Leveling
We touched on this topic last quarter. Hired’s 2021 State of Tech Salaries report has the following graphic:
These averages are low for this audience, but the interesting information is the trends. NYC and SF show decreasing salaries on average, indicative of the ability of companies in these areas to hire cheaper, remote employees. However, do we trust this data? I certainly don’t understand the Dallas figures, and though I wanted to mine more from this article, I couldn’t figure out what their data is smoking. Entry level employees making the same as 2019? I don’t think so.
Let’s look at the Dice Report:
These data trends look more reasonable. Here we see flat growth in NYC and lower growth in Silicon Valley vs significant growth in secondary cities like Pittsburgh and Miami.
Our practice is more focused, and we have observed the following:
$ significantly up for top junior-mid level developers
50% or better in some cases
Solid $ growth for all experience levels
Employees were taking significantly less money to work remotely, but with Big Tech embracing fully Remote, this discount will likely disappear
NYC rents have climbed back to pre-pandemic levels, so reports of an exodus would seem premature. I’m sure that many of those pricey rents are afforded by the people we work with who are making significant $ at a young age.
Blockchain Curious
Our business necessarily adjusts to where people want to work, and more and more that’s DeFi. Occasionally we meet people who tell us, “Anything but crypto,” due to the massive hype surrounding it. I make an effort to understand where things are going, and I thought this article describing a former Goldman exec’s motivation for buying a “Bored Ape” was particularly interesting. He concludes, “The future has arrived… You might not see it yet but when you look back in 10 years you will see the entire worlds business model has changed. Forever.“ That feels right to me.
Myself I have gone from NFT skeptic to “blockchain curious.” I received this from someone who I hold in high regard:
If you are a "NFT's are a stupid tax on rich people" person, you'll get eaten alive. If you're a "hey, we're still trying to figure out cool things to do with an open ledger and NFT's are just at the current front of that," then you just might be blockchain curious.
We currently have 2 Blockchain FinTech clients, and that number will certainly expand this year.
Affinity North Team
Not everyone knows the great Affinity North team. Please see their bios linked below:
Armine Khudinyan – Armine will soon be exploring the next chapter of her life! We are sad to see her go and so grateful to have been able to work with her for almost 6 years! Affinity North will not be the same without her!
Jim Soufleris just joined us – more to follow
Current Priorities
NOTE: This is only a sampling, too many roles to include!
Compensation continues to be strong
Hybrid/flexible work arrangements the de factor standard for almost all firms
FinTech
Most in Demand: Distributed Systems/Micro Services, Data Engineering, Javascript
Senior Credit Quant – Machine Learning – bond pricing
BlockChain Development Manager – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required
BlockChain Application Developer – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required
BlockChain Platform Developer – language agnostic, prior BlockChain experience not required
BlockChain Developer – Haskell (first Haskell job!)
Lead front-end developer – Javascript (Typescript), React
Java/Scala Engineer with FIX experience
BlockChain Developer – mix of Python/node.js/C++ - small, cutting-edge startup w/ top, top engineers
Data Engineer - Python, Go, Postgres, Kafka
Services Engineer - Go, gRPC, PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes (Java/C++ developers will transition to Go)
Platform Engineer - Distributed Systems – Go (Java/C++ developers will transition to Go)
Buy Side
Most in Demand: C++, Python, Data Engineering, Cloud, Front-end Javascript/Typescript
Junior Developers – Python/C++
QuantDev – Central Research Technology – Python/C++
Quant Researcher – Equity alpha research
QuantDev – Central Research Technology – Python/C++ - Equity alpha systems experience
ML Research Engineer – Python/C++ - ML research system implementation
Low-latency C++ Engineer – market data, OMS
Core C++ Developer – trading infrastructure – OMS, execution
Automation Architect – CI/CD – Linux, Jenkins, Ansible
Python Data Engineer
Senior C++ Engineer – high performance/low-latency, demonstrated low-level experience
Data Engineer – Python, SQL
C++ Engineer – Electronic Trading Strategies
Quant Research Lead – C++, Python, R – Drive research agenda - statistical inference models and predictive analytics
Quant Researcher – alpha research
Quant Dev – alpha research
C++ Engineer – mid-senior - matching engine, algos, CLB/CRB
Data Engineer – mid-senior – Python, Cloud/AWS
Senior Java Engineer – Fixed Income
QuantDev – Python/C++ - Portfolio Solutions
Commodities Data Engineer – Python
Sell Side
Most in Demand: Java, Data Engineering, Big Data, Cloud – Diversity
COO – Securitized Lending
Development Manager – IB Consumer Products - ~20 directs
Development Manager – Executive Director – Credit Risk
Cloud Architect – Hands-on Java
Hands-on C++ Development Manager – Directory - Equities eTrading
Java Developer – Semantic and Graph Technologies
Java/Scala Developer – Securitized Lending
Java/C# Lead Developer – Credit Trading Technology
Java Dev - Smart Process Automation and Robotics Center (SPARC) group
C++ Developer – Fixed Income eTrading
Senior Java Developer/Cloud Architect
C++ Developer – CVA Systems
Senior UI Developer – Javascript/Angular
C++ Developer – equity eTrading
Python Developer – Securitized Products
Quantitative Developer – Full-stack – AMD
UI Developer – C# and Javascript
Senior C++ Developer – equity eTrading
Python, ML Developer – ML Center of Excellence
Quant - eRates
Java Developer – Micro-services, Kafka
Data Analytics – HR Data
Java Developer - Fixed Income Front-Office
UI/UX Architect - Hands-on Senior Lead
Quant – FX/Rates Pricing
Java Developer - Front Office Automated Trading – Fixed Income
Java Developer – Rates Electronic Trading
Quant Researcher – FX systematic Market Making
Quant Researcher – Commodities systematic Market Making
Quant – Equity Futures
Lead Java Developer – Liquidity and Funding
Quant – Rates/FX
Quant – Credit – Algo Trading Research
QuantDev – Fixed Income Algo Trading – Execution
Portfolio Trading Strat – Credit/ETF
Quant – RMBS
Quant – CLO Optimization/Leveraged Finance Strat
Quant – Corp Treasury
Quant - Asset Management - Macro + Markets
Affinity North
We are expanding. If you are at the point in your career where you’re interested in trying something different, please contact me. We are ex-developers/quants recruiting great people in these fields for some of the top firms in the world. It’s a lucrative field and highly flexible.