2024 Q2.14 Market Report
Here we are 13 days into Q3, and I have yet to start my Q2 report. Is it the hot summer weather? Maybe it’s the long hiring slump that’s making these reports a little tedious? Or perhaps I deserve a hiatus after almost 10 years (!) of quarterly reports? All the above?
The market remains tough. We are in a protracted slump that makes this the most challenging market we’ve ever observed. What makes it so? A number of forces have converged:
As noted last quarter, the post-Covid hiring bubble drove salaries to unsustainable levels. Expectations are now out of whack w/ reality. It seems harder to get that next job at your current/expected salary, because it is – there are fewer opportunities paying premium salaries. There’s massive divergence between developers at the top paying firms - hedge funds/leading tech firms/high flying AI startups – and the tens of thousands of other firms that pay more standard salaries (per Indeed, average SE salary in US: $105,304). Everyone hears about Big League salaries, but it’s harder to break in now, because there’s simply less hiring than a couple of years ago. There are jobs, but it’s harder to get the plum roles.
Offshoring/nearshoring has been in play for long enough that these teams have achieved scale, experience, and ownership of key systems making lower cost hiring away from NYC more and more attractive. And of course, other than time difference, remote work being commonplace makes employing people in lower cost regions an easy choice. The past couple of years even NYC backfills are likely to be a swap for a lower cost, offshore/nearshore resource.
AI makes developers more productive, thus contributing to sagging demand. A few months ago I was asked to comment on a statement by UBS chief economist Paul Donovan who wrote "much of computer coding already has the look of a stranded asset." His point was that coding jobs were becoming less valuable. While I stand by my thoughts on the subject, I also realize that I was too literal in my interpretation. If your team is more productive using ChatGPT/Copilot, etc., you do in fact need fewer devs to do the same work.
Please note. We are working with a lot of great people who are interested in making a move. If your firm is hiring, please be in touch!
Tech Hiring 2024 Deep Dive
Colin Lernell published an excellent, in-depth analysis of the tech job market based on his 8 week deep dive into market conditions (video). One of his observations was that more and more leaders are becoming individual contributors. He noted:
Fewer management hires
Emphasis on cutting red tape
Hands-on, hands-on, hands-on! This emphasis is more pronounced at our hedge fund clients. These firms have much smaller technology teams and hire extremely talented, well-rounded engineers who don’t require a lot of management.
Per Lernell, “Meta has gone as far as eliminating the Technical Program Manager role, hinting that it wants to get rid of anything that could be considered red tape. Zuck himself said, ‘part of our work will involve removing jobs -- and that will be in service of both building a leaner, more technical company…’”
On the positive side, note that the overall negative job trend in Tech is bottoming out:
And though dislocating, AI is a net positive for technology: “AI will accelerate the economic and societal impact of tech once again, leading to more industry and job growth. But AI will also make companies more efficient, no longer needing as many workers for the same output. The net result is probably substantial growth in the tech industry.” This growth should lead to above curve turning sharply upward.
Are you a Low Latency C++ Developer?
There’s low-latency and then there’s low-latency. HFT firms require true low-latency specialists who command a significant premium for very specialized skills. This article references a very informative paper by Paul Bilokon that explores 12 techniques that are key to truly optimized code.
Not ML/AI
The best and the brightest are going into AI for obvious reasons. That makes it harder and harder to find great engineers, especially juniors, who are not ML/AI focused. A resume w/ heavy ML focus in education and early work experience frequently gets a pass from our clients – “it’s not what we do.”
As I bemoan the slow market, it’s clear that our business needs to pivot towards AI! But my point is that front-office technology and quantitative roles at the top firms require extremely good fundamentals – computer science, math, problem solving, and communication, not specific skills. We met with the head of technology recruiting at an elite firm last week. His point of emphasis: “I don’t care about previous financial experience. I just want really great engineers.”
Some Hedge Fund 1st Half Performance Numbers
Performance dictates hiring. Schonfeld struggled for 2 years prior to 2024 and massively cut IT staff after a huge buildout. ExodusPoint appears to be following the same path. One ex-EP employee told me that the firm is pulling back on centralized technology leaving pods to fend for themselves.
Hedge fund 2024 1st Half
Current Priorities
SE: Software Engineer
QD: Quantitative Developer
QR: Quantitative Researcher
HF: Hedge Fund
Buy Side
Most in Demand: C++, Python, QD, Prior industry experience, especially Buy-side experience
A few different roles:
Systematic Trader – track record required – multiple clients
Quantitative Product Manager – Quant to lead product design – large HF
The usual:
QR – ML PhD – medium frequency - large HF
QR – Alpha researcher - medium frequency – large HF
QR - low-latency – large HF
QR – Senior Futures/FX - low-latency – large HF
QD/SE – Python – Risk, Portfolio Construction – large HF
QD/QR – Structured Credit – medium HF
QD – Python, some C++ - model implementation – large HF
QD – Python – systematic HF
QD – C++ - systematic HF
QD – Algo Developer – Execution – ETE – Large HF
SE – Full-stack – Typescript/Javascript, Java/Python – large HF
SE – Java – post-trade – large HF
SE – C# - post-trade – medium HF
SE – C++ - fixed income – large HF
SE – C++ - Risk – large HF
SE – C++ - Infrastructure engineer – large HF
SE – C++ - Research platform engineer – large HF
SE – C++/Python – embedded (w/ researchers) engineer – large HF
SE – Java – Enterprise Data Engineering – large HF
SE – Java/C++ - ETE – Large HF
SE – C++ - OTC ETE – Large HF
SE – Java – Key Initiatives – Large HF
SRE – Electronic Trading Engineering (ETE) – large HF
SRE – fixed income – Risk – large HF
DevOps – AWS/Cloud/DevOps Engineer – small HF
Sell Side
QD – Fixed Income eTrading expert
FinTech
Senior Scala engineer - Fixed Income, eTrading – Remote
Financial Markets Data Science Guru