An Appeal to Young Software Engineers: Money Does Matter, but It’s Not the Only Factor
The market for software engineers is insane right now. While the market has been like this for a long time, today, with almost every business moving online thanks to the pandemic, the demand has shot up exponentially.
We’re seeing a lot of companies, backed by big investors, spending lavishly — at times even recklessly — to attract top engineering talent. And, as a young engineer, a few years into your career eager to grab a high-paying job, it’s very easy to get lured into these high salaries while overlooking some important factors.
Let me take you back to 2012 to explain what I mean.
Back then, proprietary trading, the industry I was working in, was in a similar phase. A lot of legacy finance firms had realised that High-Frequency Trading — when done well — can be very lucrative.
So they all went on a hiring spree. The best of the Ivy League, MIT, Stanford grads and medallists from IITs were getting hired. Lateral hiring was also in full swing as these companies were going after the ‘best of the best’ to stay competitive.
There were companies often approaching me and my colleagues with “lucrative” offers. However, they either required us to do things we’ve already done over and over again or didn’t give us enough freedom to choose and experiment in new areas that we’d wanted to grow.
To me personally, there seemed like a conscious choice to be made between continuing to learn and grow at my job (then at Tower Research Capital) or leaving that to go somewhere else and “use what I had learned so far” to make quick bucks.
The possibility of reduced learning and skill set stagnation if I’d chosen to take any of those other offers got me worried.
So I and all of my colleagues in my batch decided (independently) to stay back at Tower Research Capital. Only one person decided to take a different route — he quit his job to pursue a Ph.D. in Economics.
Anyway, with our collective skillset, learnings, and an environment that encouraged us to experiment, we were able to elevate ourselves and the company to new heights.
We built our skills not just in engineering and machine learning but also in mentoring, leadership, finance, and markets.
In 2017, at a time when the High Frequency Trading industry was maturing and Tower Research Capital was growing to become one of the market leaders, I decided to leave the company and start Prodigal.
I finally decided to follow my inner calling of starting my own company, while many of my colleagues who stayed back have grown to become some of the most respected leaders in the field.
What I Learned From My Time at Tower Research Capital
- At the early stages of your career, you should choose to work at a company where there is an opportunity to grow. Compounding high growth over a period of time, starting from a solid base is likely to beat a higher starting point with limited growth.
- And optimise for the quality of people you work with, the work you do, and the impact it can have as per your beliefs.
Staying back at Tower Capital worked really well for me and my colleagues.
What I Aspire to Build at Prodigal
Having been a part of some world-class high-performing teams in the past, I aspire to build a similar A-team at Prodigal.
Our market, the problem we’re solving, and our resources (investors, funding, leadership, early team) are in great shape and will give tremendous leverage to the products we’re building.
We offer opportunities that promise hyper-growth for the company and with it, for each of the team members: fast-track promotions, out-of-turn appraisals, rapid growth in ESOP value, and most importantly, building products that users want.
Wrapping it up
While I understand everybody has their own predicaments, I would encourage all budding engineers to consider their long-term goals and the wealth-creation with it, instead of just the liquid cash being offered to them.
The future is bright for engineers, and I hope we at Prodigal can play our small role.
Let me conclude using the Matrix analogy here.
Take the blue pill. The story ends right there. You wake up as another cog in the wheel and cosy up to the money.
Take the red pill. You stay in Wonderland, and you build your own wheel.
