Jake Keeys

Jane Street made $13.4bn last year and kept 48% of it as profit. Goldman? 26%. Barclays? 9%. That margin gap says everything. I’m speaking with loads of senior and VP-level devs in banks right now looking to move. Many junior devs still think a big bank title carries more weight than actually building real stuff at a prop shop. But when you look under the hood, the difference is night and day. At the prop firms: • Smaller teams, tighter feedback loops. • No fluff, you’re building things that directly drive PnL. • Better tech, better comp, more ownership. • Everyone’s sharp - no passengers. Even on my side as a recruiter, the difference is obvious. With prop shops, I’ve got a direct line to the hiring manager or internal talent lead. It’s fast, clear, and collaborative. Banks? It’s a maze - long cycles, no single point of contact, zero visibility, not much personality, and rarely any excitment or passion around the roles or what they are building. If you're a strong dev or quant still in banking and wondering why things feel slow or stale, this might be why. Feel free to reach out if you want to discuss the move. #PropTrading #QuantFinance #HFT #BanksVsProp #RecruitmentInsights #TradingTech

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Today we’re introducing Guide's long-awaited integration with Ashby ATS—bringing Aria, Guide’s AI RC agent, to all Ashby customers. The launch of this integration and our partnership with Ashby will enable more TA teams to: ↳ Automate interview scheduling with Aria, Guide’s AI RC agent, including both Copilot and Autopilot modes ↳ Deliver beautiful, branded candidate portals and interview prep to every candidate seamlessly If you’re an Ashby user looking to free up RC bandwidth and improve the candidate experience, the wait is finally over 🔥

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Maybe this could be useful to CTO's/CIO's looking at the minute? Apologies to all the Tech leaders that I've not got chance to respond to on the back of a couple of recent searches. My inbox is full at the minute and It's super tricky to spare time for individual CV reviews / detailed feedback for each message. For anyone still searching, these are a few tips I've been sharing with the CTO/CIO's I've managed to catch up with. Hopefully there's a point or two in here which might help, and easier for me to put something out on here. - If you are an interim, don't rebrand yourself to CEO. You'll just be over-looked. Keep the title to the role you do / want to do next. - Don't send follow up emails about opportunities you've applied to that are pages long, they won't get read. Keep it super short and to the point. Happy to share examples if needed. - Don't send "?" as follow up's to non-answered messages, the recruiter will probably never follow up with you again. - From 3 Head of AI / CAIO roles we've had (over 2k applicants) I've not received one phone call. This could be a differentiator now. - PDF the CV. If you share it via LinkedIn as a word-doc and someone is reviewing on mobile, they won't be able to access it. Couple points on networking here... - Networking with Recruiters. Meeting as many recruiters as you can isn't networking, and most won't handle appropriate roles. Isolate people you know that operate at this level and actually build genuine relationships. The recruiters you've used to hire people at your most recent business will also work harder for you than ones you don't know. - Most of the CIO/CTO roles aren't on the open market. They still exist, it's just understanding where. (Spoke to a CIO this week that's rejected 2 offers, and has 3 at final stage). - List previous CEO's/CFO's/COO's down you've worked with in the past, where are they now, and what are they doing? - Most important one. Who are your previous suppliers such as AWS / Microsoft / Gartner / Service Providers - they are in touch with companies in your sector, and the Account Directors will know of opportunities before most and will do intro's - speak to them! - CTO/CIO Roundtables / Dinners (according to nearly everyone I speak to) aren't useful for your job search - you have to do something different - get yourself to a CFO/CEO roundtable (or where your future boss could be) and solve problems for people. Sorry it's long winded, if you're still reading and want more insight DM and I'll do best to share something!

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Nvidia’s investing £11bn, and Microsoft’s putting in £22bn to expand AI infrastructure and build the UK’s most powerful supercomputer as part of a wider £30bn US-UK tech deal including Google, Salesforce and OpenAI. The opportunity feels huge.....and I’m sure it’ll impact businesses across the board, hopefully in a good way. I'm interested to see what happens. http://bit.ly/46CrvIt http://bit.ly/4nEbo2X Portare Solutions

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AI influencing skills in demand. We surveyed hiring managers the skills they were looking to add to their teams over the next year. The focus areas are software engineering, and data analytics and data science, with the latter recording an 8% increase. With all the talk of AI coming and taking jobs, it’s only going to create more demand for solid software engineers and data specialists. More data like this is available this month in our annual salary guide, covering the employment trends and salary expectations across the technology and engineering sectors along the east coast of Australia.

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