Q&A with Jane Street Recruiters! by Grace Heisenbottle
H1: Discovering Jane Street: A Dive Into Tech Recruiting and Available Roles
Introducing Grace and Emily from the Jane Street Tech Recruiting Team
Hello and welcome! We're Grace Hen Bottle and Emily, tech recruiters at Jane Street. Grace specialises mainly in tech recruiting, while my specific role involves experienced hire tech recruiting. Our focus spans a broad spectrum of roles, from devs to networking and systems. We'll chat on two specific roles today, Linux Engineering and Production Engineering, which are both heavily system-focused with dev skills.
About Jane Street
Jane Street is a quantitative trading firm, founded in 2001 with offices in New York, Hong Kong, London, and Amsterdam. We categorise our hiring into four main brackets: tech hiring (software engineers, Linux and production engineers, FPGA engineers, etc.), trading hiring (quantitative traders), research hiring (quantitative research), and infrastructure hiring, which involves everything not software engineering and not trading-focused. Globally, we are a team of over 1700 people, mainly based in New York.
Unveiling The Roles
- Linux Engineering: This role involves being part of a team that builds, creates, and administers Linux OS systems at Jane Street. The team members are a hybrid of coders and systems administrators, with the time allocated between coding and system administration depending on both their skill set and the team's needs.
- Production Engineering: Unlike the Linux engineer role, this one is less system-wide and focuses more on specific apps. A major part of this role is based on a support rotation where production engineers respond to live incidents and outages on apps or address any other real-time production issues. The other part of the role focuses on long-term project work where they code things to make support and incident response more automated, smoother, and easier.
Questions about the roles?
We are open to answering any questions about these roles, the interview process, the culture at Jane Street, and the tech environment. Please check out the tech listings on our website for a further look into the broad spectrum of roles available.
Encouraging Female and Non-Binary Applications
Jane Street puts its best foot forward to encourage and engage female identifying candidates and talent. For example, we host several programs throughout the year to expose female identifying and non-binary individuals to the quantitative trading field and software engineering practices at Jane Street. We recently started sponsoring the Math Prize for Girls, an initiative to motivate highly performing individuals in the STEM field with a focus on maths. Additionally, we've initiated brunch meetups for software engineers and members of the tech organizations. Besides making connections, these meetups also provide a platform for sharing ideas and opinions.
Our ethos is to treat our employees with respect and care. Our benefits reflect our commitment to employee wellbeing, and further details can be found on the provided link in the original chat. Jane Street believes in maintaining office connectivity among its global employees, encouraging international travels between the offices for better collaboration. Have fun with our monthly puzzles on the website and contact us for any specific queries about the company, roles, and career opportunities. We look forward to connecting with you!
Video Transcription
Hi, everyone. Um I'm Grace Hen Bottle. Um I am a tech recruiter here at Jane Street. Nice to meet all of you who have joined our session today.I
um I'm Emily. Um I work on the Jane Street tech recruiting team along with Grace. Um I work specifically on experienced higher tech recruiting. Um And so that encompasses a pretty broad um spectrum of roles. Um Everything from DEV recruiting to um it, networking and systems.
Um But I specifically work on more of our um less of our bread and butter, sweet roll and more of the experienced higher side of other dev roles that we have at Jane Street. So if you have any questions about um the broad spectrum of those roles, um I would direct you to check out all of the tech listings on our website. Um There are two roles that I wanted to talk about and focus on specifically today. Um One of them is Linux engineering and the other is production engineering. Um The reason that I'm kind of grouping them together is that they're both um pretty systems focused, but also involve DEV skills. Um so I can walk you through. Uh, actually, sorry, before I get into that I should probably introduce myself. Um, and how long I've been at J Street and things like that, which I forgot to do. Um, so I have been at Gene Street for almost two years now and, um, I started off doing more of a broad, um, broad swath of rules and now I'm more focused and specialized on, um, some of these like sort of niche dev roles. Um apart from software engineering, um so, to go back into the roles a little bit more specifically, um so they're both focused on systems systems.
Um The Linux engineer role is more um joining a team that works to build and create and administer Linux, Linux um OS systems at Jane Street. Um So the people on this team are usually some hybrid of between coders and systems administrators and the degree to which they spend time on either of those things, sort of depends on their prior skill set and also what the team needs needs at the moment. Um And then in terms of the production engineering side of things, um it's a little bit less systems wide and more focused on specific apps and um half or I don't know if half is the exact percentage. But um a large part of the role is focused on a support rotation where production engineers will basically um be on call and respond to live incidents and outages on specific apps or any other production issues that sort of come up in real time. Um And then the other part of their role is more focused on long term project work where they basically code things that help make their life on the support rotation easier. Um So things like monitoring systems and um yeah, other sort of like software related um things that will make their make support and um incident response just easier and more smooth and uh more automated. Um So, yeah, that's a little bit about the roles themselves.
Um I'm happy to answer any more broader questions about the role specifically um the interview process uh and even more broadly culture at J Street, the tech environment at Jane Street and things like that. So um happy to open up to questions if you guys have them. Um I'm actually not sure about this question about data analytics and data engineering. Grace. Did you wanna hop in on that?
Yeah, II I think that we certainly have a lot of roles here at, at Jane Street that do involve working with massive amounts of data if you're looking for a role that is specifically a data analyst, um that is unlikely to be a specific opportunity that we can offer you. Um But I certainly recommend taking a look at um our job descriptions um particularly those under software engineering and quantitative research fields to determine if um the, the way those roles are described maybe suit what you're looking for in a, in a data analytics or data engineering opportunity.
Um We can drop the link to um our careers page where you can find a full list of all of our, of all of the roles that are available to us or to you. Rather.
Um I see another question about actually, I guess the broader theme of a bunch of these questions seems to be like a pretty specific to, to certain roles. Um So I will say that I think the best use of the session is more just to answer more broad questions about tech at J Street. Um And maybe about these specific roles that I outlined or other sort of more broader questions. Um We're also happy to answer any questions that you have um over email which will drop our emails in the chat um at the end of the session if you guys have follow up questions. Um
Yeah, I, I think there, there are a couple of questions here um around how we encourage um more um female or female identifying employees at, at Jane Street. Um And, and the answer is we're doing a lot um particularly with, with um a focus on the uh college and pre-college um pipelines at the moment, but we are exploring um ways in which to engage uh female identifying candidates and talent um uh for those with experience as well.
Um We host um a number of programs throughout the year that um are intended to give uh female identifying individuals. Um and nine non binary individuals a sense of what the quantitative trading field is like. Um give them exposure to software engineering practices here at Jane Street, teach them a little bit more about our use of Okam, which is the programming language um that we uh that we use. Um You can find out a lot more about uh those programs by visiting um this page that I will drop in our chat. Um And to also sign up to, to know um to receive a notification when those programs are open. Um We have also recently, I know there was a specific question around um encouraging uh female identifying individuals in the trading space. We've um just started sponsoring the Math Prize for Girls, which looks to identify um exceptionally high performing um individuals in uh the stem field, particularly with the focus on, on math and encouraging their, their education as well. So we hope to use that as, as a way to continue to engage with um that population moving forward. Thank you. Um Let's see. Um There's a, a question here um around tech recruitment process for college students entering their, their third year.
Um I'm going to assume that if you're, you're entering your third year of um undergraduate here in the United States, um which is where Emily and I are based, we're here in New York. Um that you are thinking about an internship opportunity. Um We will open our summer internship opportunities for summer 2023 later this summer, um almost certainly by the beginning of August and we encourage you to check out um that apply page that I linked previously and we'll do that again at the end of our session. Um We uh the interview process for our um tech roles. Our um our tech internship roles are pretty straightforward. It, it usually involves 1 to 2 phone interviews depending on which role you're interviewing for. Um followed by a final round interview um that will most likely be conducted remotely. Um If we are able to make you an offer at that point, we try to give you as long as possible. And this is true for both um our um internship hiring and our experienced hiring recruiting. We try to give you as long as possible for you to make an informed decision about whether or not you'd like to join Jane Street. Uh Once you do receive an offer, we will fly you to New York if, if you're not local and um allow you to visit our office and um get to meet some of the um folks on the, the tech side of things.
Um who, who you might work with and, and ask questions and make sure that this is a company where you'd wanna work um whether be for an internship or full time opportunity. Um Happy to answer more questions about the the campus recruitment process. But I, I do think we are trying to focus the majority of this conversation on um kind of experience or as we call it here, lateral recruiting as well. Um We're happy to maybe tell you a little bit more uh about uh Jane Street and, and, and kind of uh what we do for, for those of you who might be um curious um or unfamiliar uh with Jane Street. So Jane Street is a quantitative trading firm. Um We were founded in 2001, so we've been around for a few years at this point. Um We have offices in New York, Hong Kong, um London and a very small office in Amsterdam as well. Um Although certainly our largest population is, is based here um in New York, um we hire for what you could consider kind of for groups of, of talent. Um We have our um tech hiring um that focuses on everything from software engineers to Linux and production engineers that Emily just spoke of to our desktop support teams, um F PGA engineers um um and other members of our it and software engineering practices.
Um We have um our trading hiring which focuses on hiring quantitative traders. Um We have our research hiring which focuses on quantitative research hiring. Um and then um we have um a group that focuses on what we call infrastructure hiring. Infrastructure can mean different things at different firms.
But, but in the case of Jane Street, it's kind of everything that is not software engineering and not trading focus. So, so that's um everything from um uh people who think about risk and um uh accounting to members of our recruiting and office admin team. So, um those are we, we kind of hire for, for lots of different skill sets. Uh But those are maybe the, the four main uh buckets that, that we think about when we think about hiring. Um We received a question about um our staff working remotely. Um So the majority of our teams here at Jane Street um have um a at least some form of hybrid flexibility. Um The number of days per week required in the office is going to vary by team um and roll based on, on their responsibilities. Um But we are able to offer while we are able to offer hybrid flexibility. Um Almost certainly we are are not able to offer um complete remote opportunities at this time. Any other questions we can answer for anyone, whether it be about the roles we have available, our interview process. Um The culture here at Jane Street, we are um happy to answer anything um that, that you ask as, as long as the the question um kind of stays general so that, so that it's useful to the um to the group listening here.
And again, we're happy to answer specific questions offline. We'll, we'll share our email addresses at the end of this chat. Sure. So, so a question around cross functionality between tech roles. I I would say that um there is a and a tremendous amount of cross functionality across um every role here at, at Jane Street and in every team, but certainly within our tech org. Um our um Jane Street is, is a pretty interesting environment in that um titles and teams are very fluid. Uh We don't really have a hierarchy here of, of titles. Um And individuals change teams all the time. Um Because these teams are so interconnected in, in terms of, of their goals. Um And, and, and making sure that the J Street really is developing the, the finest technical products for our um in-house users that, that we can. Um So I, I would say that lots of cross functionality and lots of opportunity to try out a lot of things when you get to Jane Street, you don't have to be kind of stuck in a role um that, that you are hired into as, as long as you demonstrate kind of the aptitude for, for another area that you're interested in.
We're happy to work with you to, to get you exposure wherever we can, maybe we can tell you a little bit about our size at this point. I know, you know, that, that some people really care about how large or small a firm is, so these numbers actually just came out this morning. Um So we are um a little over 1700 employees globally at this point. Um About 1100 of those are here in New York. Um A little over 400 in London, um about 220 in Hong Kong. Um And then um 18 actually in our, in our Singapore office, which I neglected to mention earlier. that's our, our newest global office um in 14 in Amsterdam. So um definitely an international presence.
Yeah, and to say a few more words about that um the geographical um office spread in general. Um I think one big part of our culture as we especially as we get larger is wanting to keep as much connectivity amongst the global offices as possible. Um to the extent that we can obviously it was a little bit difficult during COVID. Um But in terms of maintaining that connectivity, people really encourage and um yeah, encourage international travel between the offices. Um Right now, it's less, it's more focused on um travel between New York and London just because of COVID restrictions in the Asia offices. Um But that's something that is definitely encouraged and that I think a lot of employees no matter what um group or team really take advantage of um and separate from sort of like more temporary uh international travel to offices. Um I think also while this is maybe less um frequent but still not something that happens, that never happens. Um There is also, there are also people who sort of transfer from different from an office, one office to another office, if for example, they're interested in work that is happening in another office or um just something about their life changes.
So they, they want to sort of like relocate and try out something new. So um I think our global office presence is something that we really try to emphasize. And um yeah, we really en encourage uh travel between the offices and collaboration between. Um Yeah, people in separate offices as well. Um Sure.
So, so Tammy's asked a question about what we have done to encourage higher female or non binary applications and interest in our, in our recruitment process. Um I, I think I spent, you know, some amount of time discussing what we have done on the campus side of things. I'm happy to repeat that um later if, if that's of interest. But I think on, you know, the, the lateral side of things we acknowledge that. Um And, and when we say lateral, just so I'm clear about our kind of um our vernacular here at, at Jane Street, we mean um so we, we divide recruiting into campus. Um So those who are um either looking for an internship or new grad opportunity and then lateral um where that is anyone with um any amount of, of experience. So, Um I think that we've done a lot of work on the campus side of things. Um And that we are increasingly trying to focus our, our efforts on increasing both applications and success in the interview process on um the lateral or experienced candidate uh side of things. So that includes coming to conferences like this. Um We are trying to partner with um a number of organizations uh both in the US and globally that will allow us um strong access to um to talent um that might not otherwise feel comfortable applying to, to a place like Jane Street and just having some initial conversations um about um why Jane Street might, might be an exciting opportunity.
Um And, and hopefully encouraging them to apply from that point. Um We are also working um with our um female and female identifying and non binary um uh employees to, to kind of uh to work through focus groups and, and figure out um you know, to, to make sure that it's not just recruiting, not just hr thinking about these things, but actually give um everyone who, who has an opinion and opportunity to, to share um ideas with us.
That's uh an initiative that that's kicked off in the, in the last couple of months. Um An example that's, that's come out of this and uh recently is um uh meetups particularly I know um in New York, we love brunch. So we've done some female identifying brunch meetups where, where we invite anyone kind of in the, the software engineering or, or tech fields in New York to, to come have brunch on Jane Street, meet some uh Jane Street, um female identifying or, or non binary software engineers and, and other members of our tech org and no pressure to apply after that, we, we just are trying to establish kind of general um conversations and relationships.
So, so that's definitely something that um that we're looking into and, and continuing to try and strengthen those efforts again, particularly on the lateral side as, as we continue to grow. No worries, Tammy. Thank you so much for the question. Um I will drop uh for those of you who are interested in any of the programs that we run again, these are, are mostly campus focused at this point but, but you can um take a look at at all of the programs um that we run on an annual basis um at the link I've just dropped in the chat.
Um If any of them are of interest to you, you can click into each programs page and sign up for notifications to receive notifications when applications for each of these programs open um gotten a a question around opportunities for engineering students in the upcoming fall semester.
Um I'm not sure whe when you say engineering, do you mean software engineering or are we talking about more um mechanical or, or uh physical engineering. Um If it is software engineering, we, we do offer a um summer uh or rather a fall software engineering internship. Um Although this program is in person, it is not remote. Um electrical engineering. I see. Um we um do not typically uh we don't have a, an internship program dedicated to electrical engineering students. Um We certainly have had um electrical engineering majors apply to many of our campus roles in the past. Um not limited to software engineering, quantitative trading. Um a role that we call um our business um development internship which allows individuals to rotate through our infrastructure teams here at Jane Street. Um But um I wouldn't say that we have anything dedicated for electrical engineering. OK. I think we can maybe um share some um links.
Um And I'm sorry, we do not have anything in the BQ uh the Q A field. Um But just a, a reminder. Um So, so that kind of brings me to my next point. We'll, we'll share some links now for, for anyone again who's interested. Um I will uh drop the link to our apply page here um where you can see um all of the jobs we currently have available. Um I will also drop um You know, I think an important part of uh a firm's culture is, is how they treat um is how affirm treats its, its employees. Um I think that Jane Street is, is the best place I have worked in terms of um how much uh the company cares about the health and well being of its employees. And I think that is very um comprehensively reflect, reflected in the benefits that we receive both tangible benefits like our health care. Um but also the, the more just like intangible um how, how supported I feel um by both my team managers um and, and um of the leadership at, at J street. Um those more intangible benefits are kind of hard to qualify uh on in the written word.
But, but I do want to share um a page about um our benefits um where you can learn a little bit more about those kind of like tangible benefits. I was just mentioning. Um There are some great pictures of our, our offices on, on these pages as well. Um For any of you who are interested in, in puzzles. Um um and solving puzzles, we actually have a monthly puzzle that we post to our website. Um And I'll share that link here as well. It's a fun, you know, fun monthly brain teaser. Um that uh you can check out if ever you're just like looking for a way to, to spend some, some fun time. Um And I know I've just shared a lot of information and links so we'll pause one more time here. I think we have about five minutes left for any additional questions you might have or anything Emily. Might wanna share. Um But otherwise, um it was a pleasure to, to meet all of you. Um And we'll share our email addresses as well so that you can follow up with us. Um, with, again, any specific questions you might have unique to your personal circumstances.
Thanks everyone for joining. Um I'll also drop my email in the chat in case anyone has any specific questions about experience tech hiring.
All right. Well, it was a pleasure to meet you all. If there are no um additional questions at, at this point, we'll start to wrap it up. Um Again, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Um And we look forward to hopefully connecting with you in the future and, and if you're interested in a role at Jane Street um reviewing your application whenever you're ready to apply, please do feel free to, to reach out and connect with Emily and me at any point. Um Whether whether on linkedin or, or via email and, and we'll be happy to continue our conversations there.