Seems like every person I've ever met in M&A has ended up hating life because of their career choice. They seem to burn out in 5 years or so after salting away a million bucks or 3. Was that your feeling doing the HFT thing?
The jobs in algo trading are very interesting for technically - mathéamtically inclined people. It’s really one of those fields where you have a direct impact on the results of your - measurable in additional dollars made.
There is 0 social impact. That’s the downside of course - but hey, how many jobs out there are really having any kind of positive social impact ? Not 0, but close to it.
That impact is not made by HFT - finding the right risk premia for different investments is very valuable but that is a signal measured over days/weeks/months because actual capital investment decisions take that long.
Intraday financial games are zero-sum. What HFTs gain, they leech away from mutual funds and pension funds and retail investors and market makers who operate over a longer horizon.
I work on very interesting technical problems with very smart colleagues for excellent pay. All my career progression is in compensation, so I can remain an IC forever and no one thinks that's a negative. I'm subject to no politics whatsoever, and there's very little politics in the company as a whole. The work I do every day has a direct material impact on the company and I'm rewarded proportionally to my impact. My WLB is so-so, but it's better than it was in grad school so I'll take it.
Regarding social impact, the world does have some demand for liquidity and price discovery. Providing those services is both essential and extremely difficult. It's definitely not the most social good I could be doing with my talents, but I think it's weakly positive.
