Post: #301

The investment in learning frontend stuff almost isnt worth it. every weeks there's some new fly-by-night frontend framework that won't be maintained for long.

And even worse than that, my direct boss thinks its a good idea to use frontend frameworks neither of us have used before.
Personally I think paid projects aren't the time to experiment, but its not my call.

I've been doing general algorithims in python and scala , in preparation for going into quant/algorithim work, and I'm now going to start learning financial modelling. I studied engineering at uni so the maths shouldn't be too daunting


I'll do what I normally do: read, learn , then put a personal project together, and keep improving it as I keep learning.
With this skill I should be taken a lot more seriously for these kind of roles. The bank whose coding tets I did well on ,apparently aren't looking at any more applications, so I need an edge from here on in

If anyone has done quant type stuff and doesn't mind posting links to resources/any other useful info it would be appreciated

Post: #302

I'm working on an ATS(automated trading system) right now. You are right if you can show something there is great demand for the skillset.

Skip the financial modelling, you'll learn that on the job and every BB has its own internal models anyways.

Ernie Chan's stuff might be a little advanced for you, but don't worry so much about the financial logic rather focus on applying(automating) the logic behind it. There are good repos on Github for this. My personal project is a clone of 1.

Post: #303

(09-08-2015 06:02 PM)jj90 Wrote:  I'm working on an ATS(automated trading system) right now. You are right if you can show something there is great demand for the skillset.

Skip the financial modelling, you'll learn that on the job and every BB has its own internal models anyways.

Ernie Chan's stuff might be a little advanced for you, but don't worry so much about the financial logic rather focus on applying(automating) the logic behind it. There are good repos on Github for this. My personal project is a clone of 1.

Thanks for the info, could you post links to some of these repos?

I had a quick google, & I found Ernie Chan's guys blog, and a book of his called "Quantitative Trading: How to Build Your Own Algorithmic Trading Business (Wiley Trading)", is it worth reading through? Or is there somehwere else I should start

Post: #304

When I was looking for side projects to do, I wanted to do some quant trading. I found quantopian which I think is a good place to start for algo trading. They have their own back end implementation that takes in python code. Once you got something basic, you can implement it pretty quick and back test its performance.

https://www.quantopian.com/home

Also for data to use in your models, quandl has all sorts of financial and country indicators that you can access through their API. They a good python library you can use too.

https://www.quandl.com/

Post: #305

@frenchcorp: yeah you can start with that book really most of it is just hacking code together. The system doesn't have to make money it just needs to do what it's supposed to do. I 2nd cibo's recommendation, quantopian is good I've used their API and platform.

Any repo that looks half decent will do on github. I recommend this one(I cloned off this): https://github.com/jamesmawm/High-Freque...el-with-IB

Post: #306

(09-12-2015 06:55 PM)jj90 Wrote:  @frenchcorp: yeah you can start with that book really most of it is just hacking code together. The system doesn't have to make money it just needs to do what it's supposed to do. I 2nd cibo's recommendation, quantopian is good I've used their API and platform.

Any repo that looks half decent will do on github. I recommend this one(I cloned off this): https://github.com/jamesmawm/High-Freque...el-with-IB

That's great, thanks for the info

Post: #307

Got made redundant, was offered a new job elsewhere 8 days later. Still python stuff, I'm now making just over £6.5K a month.
I keep getting fined by the taxman for cocking up filing of taxes so I'm going to let an accountant do it now, it's not worth the headache doing it myself.

Post: #308

(09-07-2015 11:28 AM)roid Wrote:  

(09-07-2015 06:01 AM)Essence Wrote:  A lot of your comments on this thread are moronic and it's pretty clear you've never done any serious development/engineering work. That and/or you're severely afraid of your own job security, and thus desperate enough to spread misinformation on forums in order to steer others away from your career path.

Why do you have such a poverty mindset? When someone with experience give you advise, you can choose to ignore it or you can take it. There's no need to use personal attacks which lower your credibility IMO.

(09-07-2015 06:01 AM)Essence Wrote:  First of all, being a good developer/engineer/architect is not easy and not something that anybody can just do. If it were so simple, then they wouldn't be commanding such high salaries. Sure if you're just modifying Wordpress themes, being a jQuery code monkey, and/or doing basic CRUD work all day, that's not that difficult, and you're probably not going to command much of a market value since you'll basically just be competing with Indians/Eastern Europeans charging $10/hr on elance.com. But the more advanced stuff definitely isn't trivial, and there's a reason companies are offering fresh CS grads six figure salaries. Of course a lot of it is just knowing stuff (eg. cross-browser CSS quirks like you mentioned), but that's how 99% of jobs in any industry are, unless you're working at the fucking Jet Propulsion Lab or something.

I would like to know where you get the data from. If you're hired straight after graduation by Google, Facebook, Path, and the like, then six figure salaries are automatic. However, those require that you graduate from MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, and the like. If you just like most fresh grads, you will not get that six figure salary out of school.

(09-07-2015 06:01 AM)Essence Wrote:  You can't even compare medicine, law, and investing banking to programming. Of course doctors get paid more and have higher prestige. But they also have to spend 4 years in med school (just getting into med school is an achievement in itself, and you'll graduate with $300-400k in student loans), 4 years of residency, and be both smart as fuck and incredibly hardworking. Lawyers need to spend 3 years in law school ($150-300k, good luck getting into a good one) and work 80+ hour weeks doing boring work. Investment banking requires an Ivy League Degree or Business school, sucking a lot of dick...I mean "networking", and working 100 hours/week doing mind-numbingly boring bitch work. Oh and areas like trading and investment research require you to constantly follow the markets (you think keeping up with JS frameworks is bad? Try having to be up-to-date with the news every day in real time. Traders can't go to the bathroom during market hours without needing someone to cover for them.).

Meanwhile, programmers can land six figure gigs fresh out of undergrad (some don't even have degrees) and work 40 hours/week in lax environments. They can dress casually and stroll into the office at 11am. Working from home is not a big deal. There's tons of work, so they can easily move between companies freely and freelance/contract. They can turn into entrepreneurs and bootstrap their own startups without needing to hire other developers.

But yea I guess if you have the brains and dedication, you might be better off studying for that MCAT. But most of us don't.

I am just giving a perspective. Looking at the investment required, being an investment banker, specialized doctor, or corporate lawyer provides better career path than being a software developer. Those careers have far higher barrier of entry than software development.

If you choose to stay in IT, then you should be in IT sales.

=> http://wallstreetplayboys.com/everything...-a-career/

roid

How can someone get into IT sales if he doesn't have an IT degree. My degree is in GIS (Geographic Information Science). I'm looking to get into sales preferably something tech relate. Would I have to get IT certs and start in the tech dept before I move on to sales?

Post: #309

(10-18-2015 06:00 PM)frenchcorporation Wrote:  Got made redundant, was offered a new job elsewhere 8 days later. Still python stuff, I'm now making just over £6.5K a month.
I keep getting fined by the taxman for cocking up filing of taxes so I'm going to let an accountant do it now, it's not worth the headache doing it myself.

Very very cool man. Looks like you're smashing it.

Just to clarify, that income is as a contractor in London, after about 2 yrs experience? Is it still essentially python/django web development, or are there other skillsets you're using?

If you're a contractor, def get set up with a good accountant - they'll help you legally keep as much of that as possible, usually a mix of salary + dividends through a limited company (maybe that's how you've been doing it).

Post: #310

(10-21-2015 12:08 AM)RichieP Wrote:  Very very cool man. Looks like you're smashing it.

Just to clarify, that income is as a contractor in London, after about 2 yrs experience? Is it still essentially python/django web development, or are there other skillsets you're using?

If you're a contractor, def get set up with a good accountant - they'll help you legally keep as much of that as possible, usually a mix of salary + dividends through a limited company (maybe that's how you've been doing it).

Yeah its a London contractor role, and i have a little under 2 and a half years commercial experience. The core of the work is python/django, that the main reason I was hired

This project I'll be working on will have other people who are working with some cool non-programming stuff I havent had exposure to before, so I'm looking forward to getting some experience in these areas

Post: #311

Ahh cool!

Sounds awesome man - looks like you're set. You could probably take off travelling and do it online as well if you wanted, right?
Or at least work on your own projects. Such a cool skill. Thanks for keeping the thread updated, it's great to see you progress.

Post: #312

You went from 25k per year to 78k per year in 2 years? Career game recognised. 6.5k a month in London is certainly good money.

Let's say if you wanted to run your own hustle online, could you make $2k a month from your skillset?

Post: #313

(10-26-2015 12:15 AM)RichieP Wrote:  Ahh cool!

Sounds awesome man - looks like you're set. You could probably take off travelling and do it online as well if you wanted, right?
Or at least work on your own projects. Such a cool skill. Thanks for keeping the thread updated, it's great to see you progress.

I can't do remote work at the current job, but its definitely on the cards for future work. Due toi changing jobs often I've been able to travel quite a bit recently anyway, but it will be good to leave indefinitely whilst having income

(10-26-2015 01:52 AM)pitt Wrote:  You went from 25k per year to 78k per year in 2 years? Career game recognised. 6.5k a month in London is certainly good money.

Let's say if you wanted to run your own hustle online, could you make $2k a month from your skillset?

the first job was 21k, I've been vague/approximate with numbers previously in this thread because of general paranoia
In the 28 months ive been doing this professionally, I've had 6 jobs:

21k
28k
contract job, approx 55k/year
42k (moved to be closer to my then girlfriend , got fired within 8 weeks , lesson learnt)
40k (me and my girlfriend break up at this point, then i get made redundant)
contract job , approx 78k (current job)


i've decided my side hustle is going to be high frequency trading, I picked this because it eliminates the need for marketing, which isnt my strong suit, and it just leaves programming/understanding options, pricing etc.

It'll take time to hit 2K a month profit, but its very doable. I've got some ideas for some general-public-facing stuff, but they are taking a back seat at the moment

Post: #314

Can anyone add anything regarding the potential to work remotely with software development skills? I ran across a certain website called NomadList and it seems like there's a fair amount of people doing this, given the vast majority of the members are devs. This seems like the career I want to pursue -- not particularly because I love coding (though I don't hate it either) but because it seems like it has the highest potential to create a location-independent lifestyle while still making six figures. I mean, even if you cap out at 100,000 USD / year (which doesn't seem to be the case for on-site developers), if you're living in a low-cost area like the Philippines you could potentially save most of that, invest, and build up a few million by the time you're 40-50 (given you started at your 20s). That doesn't sound so bad.

Post: #315

Hi frenchcorporation,

This thread is very inspiring and congrats on all the people on here who got into programming jobs. There are quite a lot of jobs being posted for C#, Java, python in my experience of looking for programming for various job sites here in England.

I'm learning C#, Java and Python (I felt these three are the best and popular) while running a business. However, I'm contributing 15 hours a week into learning each programming language. I was told C# instead of C++ is the way to go in this time.

How many open source projects per week in your opinion will I need to contribute in order to satisfy the requirements of my CV looking good towards an employer? 1/2 per day? I'm also looking to develop my own apps and advertise for local business's freely and contribute on stackoverflow.

Post: #316

(11-20-2015 05:06 AM)Atom89 Wrote:  Hi frenchcorporation,

This thread is very inspiring and congrats on all the people on here who got into programming jobs. There are quite a lot of jobs being posted for C#, Java, python in my experience of looking for programming for various job sites here in England.

I'm learning C#, Java and Python (I felt these three are the best and popular) while running a business. However, I'm contributing 15 hours a week into learning each programming language. I was told C# instead of C++ is the way to go in this time.

How many open source projects per week in your opinion will I need to contribute in order to satisfy the requirements of my CV looking good towards an employer? 1/2 per day? I'm also looking to develop my own apps and advertise for local business's freely and contribute on stackoverflow.

If you're a junior developer, then one project in the language used at the job you're applying for will be enough

dont spread your efforts on open source too thin just to cover your bases, one good, complex project is better than three ok, basic ones

Post: #317

Thank you frenchcorporation

I'm actually 80% of the way learning these programming languages with the view of getting a junior level programmer/developer job.

I've set myself 3 months, 20 hours a week each to complete a Java and Python project and then put this on my CV and search for jobs.

Post: #318

I've opened a free paper trading account at https://fxtrade.oanda
They have a REST/JSON api for trading, as well as an official java api
http://fxtrade.oanda.com/trade-forex/api/

There are also 3rd party APIs written in various languages
http://developer.oanda.com/rest-live/sample-code/

There is also a GUI if you want to trade manually:


I'm going to keep reading the trading theory books I have, as well as testing out the REST api in small ways, such as getting historical info, placing orders etc

(11-21-2015 06:43 AM)Atom89 Wrote:  Thank you frenchcorporation

I'm actually 80% of the way learning these programming languages with the view of getting a junior level programmer/developer job.

I've set myself 3 months, 20 hours a week each to complete a Java and Python project and then put this on my CV and search for jobs.

If you do 20 hours a week 3 months is a good time frame, that should be enough time

Post: #319

Why not just use quantopian?

Post: #320

(11-22-2015 06:25 AM)HenryHill Wrote:  Why not just use quantopian?

quantopian uses python, I want to use scala , as its faster and i can do proper concurrency

Post: #321

(10-26-2015 07:01 PM)frenchcorporation Wrote:  the first job was 21k, I've been vague/approximate with numbers previously in this thread because of general paranoia
In the 28 months ive been doing this professionally, I've had 6 jobs:

21k
28k
contract job, approx 55k/year
42k (moved to be closer to my then girlfriend , got fired within 8 weeks , lesson learnt)
40k (me and my girlfriend break up at this point, then i get made redundant)
contract job , approx 78k (current job)


i've decided my side hustle is going to be high frequency trading, I picked this because it eliminates the need for marketing, which isnt my strong suit, and it just leaves programming/understanding options, pricing etc.

It'll take time to hit 2K a month profit, but its very doable. I've got some ideas for some general-public-facing stuff, but they are taking a back seat at the moment

I'm assuming those figures are in British pounds. That's sick mate.

Post: #322

crazy progress over the two and a bit years, congrats mate! Inspirational stuff.

You said you studied engineering at uni, just wondered what kind? I did mechanical and graduated this year still looking for a job, I know a a few engineers go into finance but never considered something like this until seeing the thread.

Post: #323

(11-27-2015 02:31 PM)mh1985 Wrote:  crazy progress over the two and a bit years, congrats mate! Inspirational stuff.

You said you studied engineering at uni, just wondered what kind? I did mechanical and graduated this year still looking for a job, I know a a few engineers go into finance but never considered something like this until seeing the thread.

I did chemical engineering

if you've done mech eng I would highly reccommend programming if the engineering side isn't working out for you

You'll use the same logical skills you gained at uni, be able to start your own business sooner (engineers aren't taken seriously until they have grey hair), be able to be location independent , can change jobs regularly with little damage to your employability, faster pay scale progression.... the list goes on

Applying for chem eng jobs wasnt working out for me before i started programming, but with what i know know, i would still pick software even if i had engineering offers

I'll end up in finance soon enough, but via software stuff, so thats still an option

Post: #324

Just wondering, I don't have a degree, however I am studying Computer Science part time in second year. I've looked at junior level developer, programming jobs and most of them don't state a degree is required on the job specification.

I'm going to be applying in February next year regarding junior level programmer, developer jobs, will the lack of degree be a disadvantage to employers? Although I'm going to be developing complex projects, apps, contributing on open source projects.

Thanks

Post: #325

(11-28-2015 08:03 AM)Atom89 Wrote:  Just wondering, I don't have a degree, however I am studying Computer Science part time in second year. I've looked at junior level developer, programming jobs and most of them don't state a degree is required on the job specification.

I'm going to be applying in February next year regarding junior level programmer, developer jobs, will the lack of degree be a disadvantage to employers? Although I'm going to be developing complex projects, apps, contributing on open source projects.

Thanks

If you have projects to show, it wont matter much, close to half of the people in IT don't have relevant degrees, and Comp Sci in the UK is pretty week, most comp sci graduates here couldnt write a for loop to save their lives