SWE Accelerator Podcast #11: How This 24-Year-Old Made $900K+ in Quant (After Meta Layoff)
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Oct 9, 2025 Helen, a 24-year-old quant, shares her journey of making over $900K after a dramatic layoff from Meta. Discover how her viral TikTok exposed Meta's rescinded intern offers and the HR fallout that followed. She discusses her transition to trading firms, the high-stakes world of quant jobs, and her strategies for landing interviews. Helen also reveals the perks of her Meta internship, the realities of burnout in quant roles, and her aspiration to create a movie recommendation app. A must-listen for anyone eyeing a career in tech!
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Polish Your OA Like A Code Portfolio
- Treat quant OAs as code samples: aim for full score and clean, well-commented modular code to stand out.
- Spend time polishing style and documentation because quant firms review code quality, not just correctness.
OS Knowledge And Projects Differentiate Candidates
- Recruiters for quant notice operating-systems and distributed-systems knowledge more than flashy side projects alone.
- Side projects matter now to differentiate candidates who all list similar internships on their resumes.
Make Your Resume ATS-Friendly And Targeted
- Use a plain one-column resume to pass ATS and autofill parsers; test by using resume autofill tools.
- Tailor bullets to the target (low-level metrics for quant, scalable systems and third-party tools for big tech).