So friends this you all know that
more than 150 students
got 1 crore plus placement offer
From IITs in India All over the IITs
And some 2-3 students got 4.3 crore worth placement
From trading firms of Hongkong and USA
But if I give you two scenarios
On one side, A student reads on newspaper
that placement is going in crores
Other side he's reading that some startups are getting $4.3 million funding
You tell me which case student will more likely to go into
Depression, Commit suicide
And have bad thoughts
And why in my life
Not just 4 crore
Have denied 2x placement offers than my current placement
Why i chased happiness
And how I chased
And lets get to analyze
4 crore placement reality in US
So before you start imagining packages of crores
I want to tell you reality
that now the no. of Indian students used to go abroad
US, UK, Australia, Canada
for big packages right after college
Have reduced by 20%
Not many students are going abroad
The reasons are straight forward
No.1, You start to get good packages in India already
Many IITians are getting 50LPA
60LPA, even upto one crore
in India itself
So many people don't need to go abroad
No.2 is family, They get more connected to their family
because it is said that
when you're just few hours flight away from your family
Like 2-3 hours
When you can just spend 5-10k to meet your family anytime
vs if you're in abroad
Doesn't matter if you're just in Germany
No doubt that is just 8 hour flight distance
from India to Germany
But cost of flight is still 700-800$
if you want to travel by a decent flight for diwali or something
so a hinderence comes when
when you're coming to meet your family in India from Abroad
vs you're already in India
So this is why many people are not choosing to go abroad
But when such big packages come in news
like 4 crore rupees
which you just can't imagine in India
Now at this moment atleast
So you also feel that
Why I am not given that offer
No one is searching that
The students from IITs who got 4.3 crore package
No one is asking how much Leet code they did
How much passion they had towards quant finance
because for companies for whom they went to take for
Theyw ere mainly Jane street, Citadel
2 sigma
These are quant companies
Basically what they do is
They actually take your help
There are 3 kind of positions No.1 is
Quant Research
No.2 is Quant engineer
No.3 is Software Engineer
So let's talk about these three positions
in Big quant companies
Quant research is such a position
which is just given to phD or Data scientist
because they want you to
develop algorithms with which
you will take their trading decisions
For example if I am a
I hire you and
I tell you to make me an alogithm
that today for a stock
let's say a stock could be like google
Just analyze google stock
And you tell me
When you sell and when to buy Google stock
in 1 Day
in 1 hour, in 1 minute
to maximize profits
I tell you today that tomorrow google's earning is coming
You decide when should I buy and when should I sell
Analyze their earnings
Analyze their profit margins
Analyze how they will perform
So that I can either short it or buy it
I will not go into details of these terms
Basically you have to tell me when to buy and sell the stock
And you have to take this decision by developing algorithms
And you will develop algorithms, Lets say
Python, which is very common for data science
And now here comes the second position
which is quant engineer
Now what quant engineer will do
He should have little information of your algorithm
They should know about quant research
How that algorithm is made
so that quant engineer will use that algorithm
and implement it
So that it can be easily used by
Product managers or people of company
Basically web developer if
On website if you're quant researcher
Your algorithm is going into website
Quant engineers are those who connected that algorithm on website
Now software engineer is
who is designing UI of that website
and implementing all three together
Now most of the quant research algorithms
The research guy should know more about this detail
But quant engineer should also know a little
And thats why these quant companies
They offer to train you
They help you in learning data science
software engineering
All the fine processes of software engineering
They train you
Most of the time they hire undergrad students
and their hype is too much all over the world
One year back their packages were just touching $200-300k only
But now their packages have increased to $500k
Before I tell you details about this package
Lets talk about normal company
Lets say amazon, google, facebook
in India if you take placement
then how packages look
So that you can connect
So lets take an example of Amazon package in India
If you get placement in Amazon
Today you'll get package of 40-50 LPA
If you want to know the details
Base pay is around 20lacs per annum
And after 30% tax cutting you'll receive
Lets not get into taxes
No.2 is
Signing bonus that could be 3 lac or 5 lac
depending on how far you're coming from
And in that relocation bonus can also be one lac
Lets take it 5 lacs for now
Now after this comes your stock
So stock is given differently by amazon and other companies
Lets say you get stock around
30 lacs
So if you will get stock of 30 lac rupees
Some companies microsoft or google give you 25% each year
but Amazon gives 5% first year
then 15%
then in 3rd year 40%
So it breaks down like this
And last is performance bonus
Performance bonus is upto 20%
or more than that
So what happens is
If you're able to meet performance
Just like you're able to do what manager told you to do
So you'll get 20%
You can even find out in end
If you're getting bonus 20% that means
you met the performance
if you're not getting 20% performance bonus
That means you're underperforming
If you perform more, You may even get
2x the performance bonus as well
If you get promotion or something
So this way totoal will come out to be like 40 lacs
because you don't add stock of 4 years
Add one year 5 %
And first year would be around 30-40 lacs
next year it will more and more
Now comparing it with USA
Amazon in US gives you around $120k/year
It can be $140k in silicon valley
but lets take average of the year
No.2 is Signing bonus
that will be around $50k-70k
Some people got $70k also
some got $50k
Some got $30k
Lets take the average
And no.3 component is
Your stock i.e similar
100k$, 5% then 15% then 40-40%
And last is performance bonus
that is also similar around 20%
according to performance
Now if these packages are 40 lacs in India
and 1.5 crore in US
Packages they decided according to purchasing power parity
But if you live with less expenses in USA
You basically have much more purchasing power
but they think of buying a house
Paying your rent
Travelling
combining all the expenses
If you buy chocolate worth 10rs in India
So here is of 3.5
So by such understanding of things
then only they give you package
and because in Silicon valleys and in many other areas
to buy a house is very difficult
Cannot afford a million dollar house
Thats why they think about all
Now its realy difficult to buy house in India also
But they're thinking in terms of overall lifestyle
Now this package was nothing
including INdia and USA
Because now is turn of packages of Quant finance
because I myself saw students of georgia tech to take $600k package
So talking about 4.3 crore package reality
So first of all the base pay is around $200k
which is like around 1.6 crore rupees
The no.2 is
No stock component
so we'll directly talk about signing bonus
Signing bonus is around $50k
which is also very similar to big tech
But no.4
which is extremely different from big tech companies
is your performance bonus
that could be $100k-$200k
There its written in your packages
Its written on offer letters
upto $200k
Total sometimes become $500-$600k
based on your composition
yesterday I was speaking to an engineer
Citadel, Jane street, 2 sigma I talk to all of them
in New York city, in chicago
and I discussed the little little details
Hows their lifestyle
Firstly I asked them
that what is your passion and what you really enjoy
They genuinely told me that
Their work is very similar
First engineer was a software engineer
who used to design website
He said the lifestyle is completely similar
to any bigtech
But difference he told me was
There's a lot of micro managing
You sometimes feel that someone is sitting on your head
Managing you 24/7
and giving you tasks
Analyzing you every day
And second engineer told me that
He was really happy he was enjoying
Even though sometimes you have to work on weekends
but he genuinely enjoys
And 3rd example is of harkirat
You must have seen my video
A weekend with 4 crore engineer
After talking to all of these three people
Infact even living with harkirat
I realized all of these engineers
are very passionate for their work
And this is not written in newspaper articles
Only one thing is highlighted
that IIT = big placement
No one talks about passion No one talk how much leep code they did
No one talks about how much projects they made
How many projects they made
The quality of their projects
And their Interview process
and
And so many times its been told in 3 idiots
that chase excellence
But when such article comes in newspaper
You think that I
why I am so dump am just getting 20 lacs
And these people are getting 4 crore
who are these people
Who are these people
From where they come
So this is the reality but if you compare it in US
I was looking at profile of georgia tech
Biggest thing is highlighted in research
and now more than 4 million
funding raised by some students in Georgia tech
And when you'll read details of 4.7 millin startup fund's details
You'll get to know that they were learning about hydrogen research
and after that what you need to do is
You can jst search for hydrogen research
You'll get whole article
what those students were doing
But if you compare with IIT
You don't know nothing about their work
Alll you know is
Just IIt = Success
Now what people do after seeng this
Students in kota
who are 17 years old or 16y.o
They just think that my IIT is not happening
that means I will never be able to crack these big placements
And I will not get big package
and why I am here for
why I need to live
And thats why they think of ending their life
which is really harsh
because no one talks about their passion
The packages these people are cracking
or raising funding
But here packages are not promoted from far far distance
If you will search $500k georgia tech
You'll not even get one student article
who cracked 500k$
If you'll find $500k stanfort but you won't find it
because
Even if they get these offers
They won't have been promoted that high level
because these companies
sometimes do not think about excellence
They see if you're overall passionate
If you're able to do overall data structures algorithms properly
Little bit finance info
That is enough
to see your passion and hire you
So many of these placements can be luck based
If these companies first went to IIT Kanpur
They get 3 students
Maybe their budget got finished
They won't go IIT Delhi
So there's a lot of luck involved
But when you do research
In that so many efforts from you are involved
Your passion is involved a lot
So thats why these universities in US
They highlight more on passion
less on numbers
Now lets calculate your $500k package
Lets say if you earn $200 base
First component base pay in New York city
So here I am going to add
New york city because in Chicago there were not big packages
I spoke on phone
SO I am gonna put the location as
Your in hand package is around
$130000
This is your base pay
You'll get signing bonus $50k
You'll get pay chcque in advance
So lets add that
that will make your yearly composition
The salary that is coming in our hands
around $250k
plus taxes on them
So the amount that will come in your bank in first year
that is around $155k
and we'll see performance bonus at the end
Now if you just think about this amount
If you live in new york city
then your rent will be around $300k
living in Manhatton
because you're living there, Live the life and
per month bills, Lets say food etc 1000$
Travel $200
and miscellenous lets say $100/month
So if you multiply with 12 and add on
Your expenses will be $50k
and if you
substract the amount which was left in hand
which was $155k which is going in your bank
so you'll be saving straight $100k directly
and which is a big big number
But with this you have to make work life balance also in these companies
which will get to in a minute
Now lets get to know about performance bonus
So performance bonus is based on performance
To whomever I spoke
They were telling me The normal
work day is 8-9 hours
Everyday monday to friday
Some were not getting invites on weekend
some teams were micro managing
some teams weren't
In some teams you have to do 5-10 hours on weekends also
If you have like security breaches
Some big issue arises
That happens on call
So that is once a month
Pretty much like big tech companies
But reality is
Great work life balance companies
SOmetimes you just 2-3 hours focused work, that is also enough
Average hours a programmer codes is 1.5 hours
but in these companies average can be 3x of these
You have to sometimes put in more work
to complete your deadlines
to finish your work on time
So performance bonus if you're able to do all these things
Worst days-11-12 hours a day
Good days 7-9 hours
If you give per day then you will meet the performance expectations
and performance bonus can be around $100k
plus aa
Plus benefits and all It can be $150 also
Based on your offer letter
So we have to go for the second year of your income
second year in your base
That $200k base pay
we'll not add signing bonus
So in base pay, we'll add $100 more
and lets make it $300k
So next year you'll be saving $180k
So first year after taxes you'll have around $150k
Second year after performance
You'l have around $180-200k
Based on you get $100k or $150k performance bonus
But that is what you will have in your hand
or after this you have to minus expenses
so basically you're saving one crore plus
Even though this package is of 4 crore
But you can have one crore saving in hand
and it is possible
or these savings can give you satisfaction
You'll feel you're getting rich
but can it give you happiness
That is very questinable
Acc to the happiness index data
On medium I analyzed properly
Studies prove that your happiness increases when you make upto $75k
After that happiness varies
sometimes you think that $75k is not enough
Then you will feel depressed
Then you will see my friends are earning 4 lacs
5 lacs
per year in terms of dollars
You will feel depressed and you will
feel you have achieved nothing
and sometimes in $75k you'll think
that you buy apartment
A nice car
You can afford everything
Yuo'll feel satisfied
And you'll feel sense of accomplishment as well
And my thought is
More hobbies = more happiness
And studies prove that
when you work for these companies
like Jane street and Citadel
You have lesser time for hobbies
and your happiness could vary
Depending on how passionate you are
When I was living with harkirat
He's so passionate
even working on weekends
Even though if he has to work 5-6 hours on weekends also
He prefers to do it because he enjoys
If you're such person
who likes to watch movies more
and watch for longer hours
as compared to working 5 hours of weekend
Maybe you won't enjoy such lifestyle
I am not one of them
And thats why I
have denied interviews
I got interview offer from citadel
Not very difficult
same like simple big tech
But I denied that Interview itself
Because when I saw work life balance
The happiness index was not the highest
And I said I want remote culture
Infact I called people at jane street, citadel and 2 sigma
Many of them said its compulsory to go office 5 days a week
It depends on team to team
Those 5 people said that they were forced to go office
every single day
And like I work remotely
I love to work from all over North America
South America
I love to work remotely
Even India last year I worked
If you have seen those videos
or if there's ome emergency in family
If you have to go to India
You maybe have to take holiday
Holidays are only 15
in these companies
As compared to google, Microosoft, facebook..There
in some cases you get unlimited paid time off
and 21 days at Google
So that is much better and
remote work oppurtunity
In my offer letters I want 100% remote
and you'll be given that
because you want to
So thats why I personally denied
and I am happy to say
that I denied $500k
and I didn't even interview
And what you think about these offers
Let me know in comments below
Thankyou so much for watching