Susquehanna International Group Reviews

Pros

The learning environment is great.

Cons

The pay is less than similar jobs else where.

Advice to Senior Management

People with good contribution should be paid better.

Pros

poker classes are great , you will learn great poker here

Cons

salaries are less than what you would expect

Pros

Endless perks- free food, auto mechanic, ect.
No TPS reports.
No one looking over your shoulder telling you how to code - use all the recursion and functional programming you want.
No one complains about wearing earphones.
Opportunity to raise in pay and prestige without going into management.
Pay is way better than other places in the area...

Cons

...but way worse than other companies in the industry.
Company is run by traders, not programmers, which is not optimal for the career of a programmer.
Hard to concentrate on coding on the trading floor.
No say in what projects your placed on.
Different departments vary wildly in culture- your experience may vary.

Pros

Free lunch, easygoing relaxed atmosphere

Cons

Hard to get promoted from within

Advice to Senior Management

more transparency

Pros

Free food, gym , nurse, casual work attire

Cons

Less than average salary and bonus when compared to otehr wall street firms
Less than deserving appreciation from the immediate manager

Advice to Senior Management

Salaries were flat for last 2-3 years and employees understood the financial environment. Its hard to belive when Senior management mentions that they made just a modest profit. Some of the smartest and brightest people work at Susquehanna and it is hard to believe that in 2010 there performance didnt meet or exceed performance of other wall street firms.

While other wall street firms paid out great bonuses on top of super salary raises, Susquehanna gave me only a 2% salary raise after 3 years of salries being flat. On top of that no bonus increase for 2011. (At least this is what I got after having exceeded expectiations of my boss in performance over the last 5 years of my association)

My sincere advice to management would be that if you do not want to loose your valuable and deserving employees please start paying up, otherwise you will see much higher attrition rate.

Pros

The quality of work is very good. There are no strict deadlines and generally you don't have long days at work. You get a very good exposure to business and technology. You get free food and other services like laundry, gym, yoga etc.

Cons

The pay scale is less than expected. Also there isn't a good increment you get every year. Bonus is also less than people get out there on the wall street.

Advice to Senior Management

The leadership at SIG is really good and they pamper their employees. People working here are really happy with everything. If the increase the pay of their employees then I think the retention rate would be much better.

Pros

Education, people, culture, effiiciency, fairness, casual attire

Cons

No work-from-home policy, little flexiblity in regards to part-time opportunities

Advice to Senior Management

Allow more flexiblity for non-essential staff

Pros

fast paced
cutting edged technology
good work environment
encourage self promotion
Enjoyable place to work

Cons

long hours expected
Benefits are not great for families, but not costly either

Pros

No overseeing single architect. Each team is able to solve problems as they see fit (of course in a manner that integrates with other teams). We have Oracle, Sql Server, MySql, C#, C++, Perl, Ruby, Python, Linux, WIndows, Access, Multicast, Web farms, VM farms. if it works and makes sense and can make money... go for it.
Perfect mix of "down to earth" people, who are also the smartest you will work with in one place.
Big enough to be involved in all aspects of Wall Street and advanced technologies, but teams are small enough that no one developer feels lost in huge projects.
The business is incredibly accessible. Questions on option trading, how an app should function, just go and talk to the key business people. Not only will they help you, they will respect you for taking the time to engage them.
3 weeks vacation to start. plus personal days. Plus unlimited sick days.
It doesnt take 3 years to complete every project! People are geared to make things happen.
At many levels technologists are catered to as the business recognizes the value they bring.
Currently all developers moving to Quad Core Win 7 64 bit machines. Ya want it, request it, you got it.
You dont need 1000 levels of approvals. "I need 4 monitors because.." and 2 days later the monitors show up.
FREE LUNCH! Actually, breakfast too!
Key aspect... the entrepreneurial spirit carries into technology. In just my short 5 years there I have seen many new university hires quickly gain new positions, or moved into advanced system development. If you can do the job the opportunities arent there
VERY competitive salaries for the Philadelphia Market place. Not as high as New York, but higher than the majority of Philadelphia technology firms.
Technologists PARTNER with the business. Many times the business gives general ideas "We'd like to start trading _____ " and tech is sort've like industry experts to say "how about this... did you consider this... how about we do this first, then move on to...."

Cons

The same entrepreneurial spirit and autonomy can sometimes lead to frustration in getting dependent teams on the same page and schedule. A problem everywhere, but SIG moves through it with common sense.
For those that want a structured promotion plan, SIG could be frustrating, There isnt a mult- level structure of "You did good this year so now you are Computer Scientist Level III". If you want that, go to Computer Science corporation. If you are kicking butt, you'll see it in your paycheck.
If you want to be told what to do all the time... SIG isnt for you. Requirements aren't always solid. Business doesn't always know what they want. Technologists are expected to know technology AND the business. Many time (most) times technologists have to drive requirements and considerations. Techies who love this process do well SIG. You want to be handed a contractual like requirements document, look elsewhere.
Mixed into the amazing technologies, are processes and applications that were put together quickly to meet an immediate need. You may need to support them, or build your own hack n slash at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Thank you for doing a great job. With the financial turmoil the last few years, I know of NO TECH LAYOFFS other than the normal trimming of the dead wood. It means we are in the right business lines, making the right decisions, and value technologists enough that even when a business unit changes or is slow, techies are moved into other spots.

Pros

Pace of work. Perks are great

Cons

Salary is not as good as other wall street firms

Advice to Senior Management

Match wall st salaries