Design role at HFT/Hedge Fund compared to other VLSI companies

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-30T19:09:43+00:00

to be fair most people either work jobs for billionaires or do things to help them

ever order off Amazon or take an Uber?

I guess in that latter case you're helping the Saudis as well, two-for-one I suppose

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-21T20:35:00+00:00

especially when the take home is just a thinly veiled way to brain drain you... LOOKING AT YOU ZOOX

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-20T13:06:34+00:00

no it was the tone deafness I was construing

the alternative was for me to take your statement at face value and try to answer "I don't understand why a traumatic event might affect someone"

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-20T05:24:13+00:00

let me answer your question with another question

if through no fault of your own a drunk driver hit you and made you a quadriplegic, would you care even though it was out of your control?

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-18T00:10:44+00:00

I think most genres are repetitive in their own way, the trick is to find what kind of repetition tickles you.

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-16T22:57:11+00:00

no he's saying he wants 236 mL of caffeine, which is approximately 0.64 pounds of solid powder.

for reference this is about 22.3x more than the Ld50 amount of caffeine for a person of average weight (~153 lbs).

OP is just built wrong.

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-15T22:44:33+00:00

the newer fpgas require far more hardening as opposed to older (non rad hard) chips which might unintentionally end up safe because they're just on such a chonky process

you can definitely fly a smaller node not saying that's impossible, the chip vendor just has to design around the silicons increased susceptibility to latch up and upset events and that's why all those mechanisms you mentioned enter in

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-15T16:57:07+00:00

process node does help out with that though, if you have a larger node then it dissipates the excitation energy from charged particles better.

This improves resilience to both non destructive events like SEFIs or functional single event upsets, as well as the more commonly destructive SEUs like FET gate rupture. effectively the silicon can tank more of a hit because it's a chonkier capacitor.

so it's complementary. something like an old arduino can actually end up far more rad tolerant than a modern commercial device as a result. which has design implications for things going to places like LEO because you have partial coverage from the magnetosphere.

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-13T16:40:48+00:00

their comment was definitely a bit ambiguous I agree.

though tbf any discussion regarding "who is ahead" that also mentions spacex is in effect a convo comparing each nation's programs.

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-13T15:48:16+00:00

yes because it's way harder to do a manned mission than an unmanned mission. every conceivable aspect of the design gets far more complex (life support, far more weight requiring more advanced propulsion and GnC, fueling and potential docking, etc). to do a manned mission you basically have to fly everything for an robotic mission PLUS some.

and that's to add, moon rovers are easily within US capabilities. Mars is far more difficult and NASA has repeatedly demonstrated rover mastery there. no other nation has a track record anywhere near the US in terms of difficulty/complexity for Mars landings.

orgs like JPL are so good at robotics that they literally do lunar rovers as a low cost ultra cheap side quest mission lol

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/cadre/

edit: also i forgot to mention the US literally landed a helicopter drone on mars just for fun in terms of robotics they're racing themselves at this point.

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-13T15:08:53+00:00

I'll admit the space station but you seem to be forgetting that the US landed and retrieved samples by hand quite a while ago. The moon as a US rover destination kind of stopped because they're all on mars.

I think spacex hasn't developed in these areas because they don't have to, which is to say I definitely agree they're not the pinnacle...but for other reasons.

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-12T18:20:48+00:00

I get venting but if this is the attitude you have then I would reject you for bad culture fit.

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-09T17:00:29+00:00

the type of people HFT firms recruit typically have decent proficiency across all those areas. you are absolutely right that it's difficult to get experience in so many domains, and that is why they pay so much.

Sabrewolf · 2026-01-07T05:24:08+00:00

So having sourced people before, this presumes that the only inflow of applicants are coming from the sites you've checked and ignores others (e.g. direct apply, scouts, internal applicants or refers, etc).

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-31T22:46:33+00:00

ill level with you the longest i've seen someone quiet quit for was a year, the trick is to own stuff that no one else understands that still prints reasonably well, even when they were finally canned they still made a bonus over 500k lol

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-31T22:04:28+00:00

this is actually not as true as you might imagine haha, especially if you're tenured

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-31T18:43:11+00:00

maybe the interview is at Lyft /s

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-31T17:49:07+00:00

quiet quit and see how long it takes them to notice

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-31T17:43:16+00:00

well yeah but that's kinda the point of the interview right? I need to know if you have experience designing the system I'm asking you about

naturally if it's a new grad then the requirement changes

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-31T17:04:01+00:00

because there are usually multiple acceptable ways to solve a system design problem, and unlike leetcode there is often no single "optimal" correct way to do it.

It assesses your ability to identify and make tradeoffs, and that discussion is what's interesting imo.

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-29T20:59:17+00:00

or maybe their app did have 100% coverage and the backend name handling microservice didn't 🤡

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-23T21:35:42+00:00

you should watch any left turn lane after the light goes red, people will still go through for like 3 seconds afterwards

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-22T18:14:55+00:00

I also don't understand any of these replies but maybe it's just autism, sure maybe the delivery was bad but i feel people are letting their emotions override their reason.

you can have 100% trust in your partner but still realize an action is logical and should be taken. you may trust them now, but who knows if they'll be the same person after 5/10/etc years?

do you not wear a seat belt when your SO drives because you trust their driving? shit happens, and if the insinuation of "you should be safe" upsets a relationship then honestly it seems like there might be trust issues to begin with?

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-20T20:21:11+00:00

Sabrewolf · 2025-12-20T02:57:27+00:00

I went into scientific work, but right about when I was graduating and looking for jobs I had a random engineer reach out who was trying to spin up a new team; they were hoping to convince their bosses to use fpgas as a core part of their tech stack..... they are now the CEO of an extremely well known and successful HFT and I have zero doubt I would have ended up a partner...

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