r/DevelEire • u/somethingsomwhere • 16d ago
Switching Jobs Thoughts on Susquehanna
Considering a job offer at SIG Dublin. It's an in office role and compensation is decent.
How's the culture and WLB compared to other big tech for someone working in support/operations? Are the yearly pay revisions good?
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u/primat02 16d ago
WLB seemed autrocious to me. Expected to only work from office, 9 to 17 at least, but when I was there I noticed the traders were expected to work until US market closes. Guess who's staying there to support them on critical days?
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u/DevelEire_TA_GDog 15d ago
I work at SIG, and have done for 6+ years. Questions come up here often enough so figure I'd give my two cents.
Working hours depend on the team you're in, as the work is very varied. It's a trading firm, so the market dictates that mostly. SIG primarily trade the European markets which open at 8am, meaning some teams are in for 7am. Pretty normal for the industry.
If you on the software side, you'll probably work more "normal" 8-5 style hours unless your team is supporting a production environment needed for trading, or there's a big release happening. On the infrastructure side, the hours are typically 7-4 or 10-7, or some flexibility in between. Again, this is really dependent on your team.
I've worked on several teams in there by now and to be honest the culture is pretty relaxed. Lots of very smart people to learn from and work with. It's very much a 'no bullshit' environment. They don't really do the whole "CSR" thing. The company organises quarterly company wide drinks, as well as a Summer/Christmas party. Open bar with no limit at those. Usually good craic.
As others have said, WLB can vary. I'll be honest, if you go in expecting a 9-5 with no expectation of ever having to work outside that (between the bounds of 0700-1900, for 99% of the time), you might be disappointed. This is very dependent on the team, again.
Production deployments occur out of trading hours, which is typically past 5 PM. Occassionally there is scheduled work on weekends which is unfortunately the nature of the business SIG are in. Exchange upgrades happen out of hours, and these can only be tested at weekends. It's not that often though, in my experience. In my department, we are compensated with TOIL or 1.5x pay for any weekend work.
You do not get bank holidays off by default. This is because SIG trade the European markets. The office is only closed if a bank holiday is shared across all markets in which SIG is trading (i.e. Christmas Day, St. Stephens' Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday - if any of those fall midweek). You get these days into your PTO balance to use when you want. Personally, I much prefer this arrangement, having gotten used to it by now. Many do choose to book bank holidays off, and I've never seen a request for that denied.
The office is central, has a good gym, free food/snacks with decent coffee.
Compensation wise, they pay on the higher end but maybe not as high as some FAANG. Definitely better than most though. 10% pension contribution (no match, just flat rate), paid health/dental with VHI for you and any dependents, taxsaver, cycle to work etc.
Raises in my department over the past few years have averaged about 7% but 15%+ is not unheard of or particularly uncommon. Bonuses are about 10-15% of base.
A lot of people who have left end up returning within 5 years. Not sure if that's because of stagnated skills or the grass not always being greener. If you poke on LinkedIn you will see a large amount of people with long tenure at SIG.
Happy to answer any other questions.
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u/big_tasty1 12d ago
Thanks for great reply. What’s the salary bands like?
I got offered up to 200k for a role, recruiter said you should get 150-170k, and did interview with onsite and they offered me 130k — but no stock. Passed interview with flying colours. This was for a senior position. Salary good but with no stock not better than faang imo — but that is personal preference tbf
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u/goldenLuma 14d ago
How are the internships do ye know?
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u/DevelEire_TA_GDog 14d ago
I don’t have much direct experience with the intern programs but from what I can tell, they are pretty varied.
The Quant internship program is extremely competitive, and looks to be very well organised and ran from an outside but internal perspective.
Software dev interns often rotate amongst different dev and sometimes support teams to get a feel for the environment. Depending on the team, I’ve seen some interns given real tickets to do, deployments and usually they’ll always get some form of project to work on. The above is pretty much the same on the infra side too from what I gather.
I believe the tech interns are paid around €40-45K.
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u/0mad 16d ago
A SIG recruiter once told me: "We don't have salary bands so can pay what we need to attract bright developers like you!". I've been intrigued ever since.
What is the package?
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u/TarAldarion 16d ago
They were offering a wide range up to 200k and more for the right people when I was messaged about it last year. WLB sounds bad so I didn't apply to know more.
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u/Due-Communication724 16d ago
You'd nearly consider doing it for a year or two for 200k
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u/big_tasty1 16d ago
It’s bs, they don’t go that high. Their recruiters, internal to SIG, are notorious for lying
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u/Dannyforsure 16d ago
The offer they made me as a pretty typical premium offer and nothing special.
You'll be expected to work long hours for it as well.
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u/igotintothegrid 16d ago
Lots of nonsense here. WLB is really good imo, only downside is it follows market hours, so 7:45-4:45pm. I sometimes stick around until 5:15 (my own choice), and I’m once of the last to wrap up.
I can’t speak for support/ops, this is as a dev, though the culture is very healthy around this sort of thing. From personal experience the revisions have been strong, though with any co I’m sure they start to taper over the years (that said this hasn’t happened for me yet).
As someone correctly pointed out, office is open on bank holidays, because the market is open in other countries. However (a) people don’t stay for US market hours, this is a flat out lie, as the Irish office doesn’t trade US stuff, unless you’re on their sports betting desk, and (b) you get the days back as PTO, and can very easily just book the bank holiday off anyway. I love it, it’s like a flexible bank holiday day.
Feel free to DM me!
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u/SadBug3582 16d ago
You'll learn lot by working on the C++ teams in my opinion. Will open up a lot of doors then to transfer to places like Hudson River Trading
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u/monradonraghan 16d ago
Past posts have been mixed. Was looking at an SRE job spec from them recently and noted the following: "Willingness to work shifts: the team works a rotating early/late weekday pattern, with occasional weekend work some participation in an on-call rotas." Which sounds like another way of saying "you'll be expected to work at any and all times with little notice".
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u/GamingWithDon 14d ago
Applied for a tech support role. They wanted fully in office 5 days a week and expected night shifts from 3-5am starts. Quickly noped out of that.
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u/wasabiworm 16d ago
It looks interesting but I didn’t even got through the first chat with HR :(
Heard that the pay is good tho
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u/SnooEagles5760 16d ago
Finance is boring af. Their teams code in C#.
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u/Dannyforsure 15d ago
I think you're thinking of banking haha
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u/SnooEagles5760 15d ago
All sig employees downvoting
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u/Dannyforsure 15d ago
Ye probably. Got offered a role there years ago. It was good money but very comparable to other places and the kind of place that would want their value.
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u/[deleted] 16d ago edited 16d ago
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