AllOptions: Somehow they always choose the wrong option
Pros
It's a third tier market making firm but if you are straight out of college there is so much to learn that you probably won't see the cons for the first year or so. Every developer and many traders work 9-5:30. The compensation is quite low (read below) but you won't have to sweat if you don't want to. The annual Xmas parties are usually quite nice. They'll give you and your partner free booze. That's a pro in my world. I gotta give credit where credit is due: Getting rid of the previous CPO was a true stroke of genius!
Cons
Compensation: Both the base salary and the bonus are fairly low. This leads to a total compensation which is significantly below the industry's median. To makes things worse, the bonus is paid over 3 years and if you leave early you won't get paid! Management: The management displays a concerning lack of competency in leading the company. The CEO is literally non-existent. He will randomly show up once every few weeks, checkout the Bloomberg terminal for 5 minutes and leave. The most you will interact with him will be a "Hi" at the annual Xmas party. The COO does come to the office and sit next to traders but he is just bad. He would set impossible targets, fail to achieve them and pivot to new equally impossible targets. Senior Employees: Seniors barely contribute to any innovation, expecting juniors to do all the innovation. To be frank I don't think they have neither the knowledge nor the skills to come up with new trading ideas/strategies. The whole flat hierarchy that the company ostensibly advertises is misleading at best. Juniors have to go through an endless validation process just to test their ideas while seniors' ideas are taken at face value and implemented without even testing. This usually leads to terrible outcomes. Turns out that Seniors' intuition is on average worse than doing nothing.... Culture: The company's culture is okay(ish). If you like beer there will be plenty on Friday's. They also offer wine (Walmart's $5 Barefoot wine), but I would choose water over it. If you are a junior they will expect eternal gratitude for the opportunity they provided and you will be treated as disposable labor. This can make the environment feel quite toxic (especially if you are a minority). Outlook: Practically speaking the company has only one strategy. I won't disclose it but it's stupidly simple. When it stops working, due to negative market conditions, the company will start bleeding cash. The company is trying to come up with new strategies but I don't think the current management will be capable of delivering anything of value (read above). They are targeting to be top 5 in the US and top 2 in Europe in 3 years. That's one of those unreasonable targets I was talking about earlier. There is no way they will achieve those goals. If they were a public company I would short them, unfortunately they are private ....
