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I think this creates difficulty in raising talent, for HFT specifically. If you started out market making in Canada, it would be at a bank, and you can't port over your strategies to US markets since the microstructure is so different. Similarly, you may not easily be able to leave to a US firm, since, again, you're reliant on your bank's legal infrastructure for your edge to be possible. So for somebody to start up an HFT shop in Canada, they would need to be trained and mentored in the US first, then come to Canada and start an office there, and then begin to hire juniors here and train them. There's no specific reason this hasn't happened yet, it's just a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy and it hasn't reached a critical mass.
You have the reverse effect for special situations, event-driven, and risk arbitrage trading in the country. Almost all the funds here are fundamental and focus on those types of strategies and they do quite well, because at some point somebody got good at it, trained juniors, and those juniors started up their own shops.
Schonfeld is opening an office in Toronto now and it appears they don't want it to be a satellite based on their hiring intentions (which includes hiring systematic teams), so maybe it could change in the next few years. Or maybe not.

IMO to succeed long term in HFT space you have to have a bit of a competitive personality and be more interested in winning the game than necessarily finding the work "meaningful" per se.
But I would be very careful about attributing what you're seeing to HFT and not just a broader shift in engineering roles. AI is making a lot of teams less collaborative and more output focused - I've seen it first hand.

Pivot from HFT dev -> AI/ML systems/performance dev

schwab's api latency isn't really their strong suit if you're chasing every millisecond, but for what you described it's probably fine. the tradeoff between saving 15%+ on commissions vs a tiny delay on fills makes the switch a no-brainer for most retail algos that aren't pure HFT

for a city that is one of financial capitals in North America, it's also got NY proximity. Before we even talk about EU or UK Quant finance, it's supposed to be an attractive destination for many looking for roles outside of NY and should be borderline competing with Chicago. From my research Buy/Side HFT Market Making is mainly few Canadian branches of US Firms, could there be a market making firm gap from native Canadian firms, in Toronto in Particular and also Same Question for Montreal?

I wouldn't plan around an MFE yet, it's an expensive detour for something you can maybe get straight out of campus placements. The HFT shops that recruit at IITs mostly filter on CGPA, an OA (coding, probability, some mental math), and whether your branch is on their eligibility list. That last part is a big reason econ kids rarely end up with those offers.

So the double major could be worth the extra year if it actually gets you treated as math & computing at placement time. Ask a couple of seniors how that played out for them before you commit. Meanwhile keep your CGPA high, do competitive programming, and get very comfortable with probability puzzles. Way too early to give up on it as a freshman.

ETC/ECE is honestly one of the better non-target backgrounds if you lean into it. HFT shops hire FPGA and low latency engineers, and that's basically your degree (verilog, timing, networking). Way less crowded than QR, where you're up against math and physics PhDs from targets. Biggest roadblock is getting past resume screen with no internships, so a lot of people either do a masters at a target first or start at a smaller shop or a bank tech team and lateral after a couple years.

Hello,
I previously worked at a company with a Big Tech/FAANG-like environment before moving into a quant dev role, working on trading systems in the HFT space.
Comparing the day to day experience, I found my previous role more enjoyable and meaningful. The environment was more collaborative and social, while my current work feels quite different.
Has anyone made a similar move from Big Tech/software engineering into devving at a quant firm and felt the same way?
Did you eventually adapt and start enjoying it more, or this isn't possible? And what u recommend, like shall accept that either i need to adapt or leave?

I just got a job at a (relatively) small firm. No idea how I got it or why they picked me, but I’m riding with it.
My question is what JS or HRT are doing to make more than HFT/ULLT. I would have naively thought that ULLT was the fastest way to make money if you could get it to work.

for a city that is one of financial capitals in North America, it's also got NY proximity. Before we even talk about EU or UK Quant finance, it's supposed to attractive destination for many looking for roles outside of NY and should be borderline competing with Chicago. From my research Buy/Side HFT Market Making is mainly few Canadian branches of US Firms, could there be a market making firm gap from native Canadian firms, in Toronto in Particular and also Same Question for Montreal?

or on the contrary, in order for HFT to continue to work volatility would need to be much higher such that a half percent move is now basically nothing?

If we just legalized meth we'd be more free and we'd get more work done!
Liberty includes the freedom to regulate behavior that puts the sustainability of society at risk. HFT provides basically no social utility and severely distorts asset prices, it's a fine pig to slaughter so the rest of society can eat a bit better.

This would definitely get rid of alot of the HFT algos the hedgies use

I think a bunch of MM are still competing on latency alone… but the margins have been squeezing… there are some physical limitations to the amount of nanoseconds you can chip away… so a lot of MM started diversifying from HFT strategies to more short term, medium term (i.e. HRT entering derivatives strategies usually used by HF or CitSec entering structured products) or even long term strategies (i.e. JS investing in the Situational Awareness fund).

HFT HW Interview Advice

I think you’re misreading what I’m saying a little, I have extensive direct experience in in this corner in a major MM/HFT.
I’m not saying it’s easy, just that there are no fundamental barriers to entry intra-colo. I’m not also saying that HFT firms don’t fiercely compete on latency. I am saying that being fast (in a way that matters for the exchange micro/nano-structure) isn’t on its own that great if you don’t also have the strategies that benefit from it. For example queue prio only matters if you have a good strategy. Fast quote pulling only matters if you’re quoting well to begin with. Hitting a passive option fast order pays off much better when you can price well and manage the positions you get into well. I don’t think then we have such different positions.

No offense, but your comment reflects a common misconception among conventional hedge fund and bank desk traders. While the speed race has diminishing returns, top HFT firms still fiercely compete on latency and queue position. It requires much more than just buying standard colo space and McKay tickets. This is exactly why HFT firms that have expanded into mid frequency trading (which includes most of the major players today) have a massive edge over traditional multistrats trying to break into HFT.

Citadel is the hedge fund, its Citadel Securities which does the low latency HFT.

Listen kid I trade since 2014, I'll give you the bread and butter of this thing I'll use only logic with my argument and direct you to the right track.
There's no such thing as discipline unless you are fuckin risk management or break your own strategy rules period.
You're argument I over trade and give back my profits I'd say, quant and HFT funds trade 24/5 a week yet they come ahead everytime until they don't, the logic here is they have a statistical/mathematical edge that makes em money, if you execute your trades according to your strategy 100% and stick to risk management and you give back your profit then the obvious here is your strategy, you don't have an edge over the market in the long run, most successful vetted trader's not guru online bullshit don't have an edge over 0.3% yes you've read that right, 49.7% of their trades are losing trades and only 50.3% are winners with multiple RR per trade you'll always be ahead of the market no matter where the market is up or down.

i am a first year ug student at one of the top iits in india. i am enrolled in its BS program of Economics. Our program has a good number of math courses, including advanced calculus, linear algebra, complex analysis, theory of partial differential equations, statistics and probability, and a few more. The institute offers a double major in economics and mathematics & computing for students who perform well. The caveat is that the system is inefficient and it'll take about a year more to complete the credits of the double major. They also offer minors, which can be completed within the duration of the main BS Economics program.
The students of our program rarely get offers from MFTs. They mostly get placed for core finance and consulting roles. i can't decide which path to take. i really wanted to get into quant but i don't think i would dislike going on the more conventional finance/consulting route.
I was wondering that if i really had to land an HFT quant offer, what should i start doing from right now? i don't really see myself landing an offer like that being a student of this program. I'd definitely have to consider doing a masters, probably an MFE for it. Which unis and which programs should i target for getting quant offers? and how do i build a profile that would help me get into these unis? could a double major help at all, and would it be worth the extra year i put in for it?
Also, honestly speaking, should i just give up on this quant dream and pursue finance/consulting instead?