Moral flexibility and subjugation. The boss says to build a thing, you build the thing. If rewriting an infiniband driver and pinning it to a core on the server and processing requests in kernel space in exquisitely crafted C is what cuts reation time by 0.0000005 sec and makes the firm a few extra bucks, that's what you do.
I interviewed at a Manhattan HFT firm (~2015) and that's what they do. The boss noted that "Congress could make a law invalidating our business model" and I realized that would be a good idea. They're not making the world a better place; they're not providing a valuable service; they're just exploiting and extracting and skimming some dollars out of the market. They have money and they're in the right place so their money can grab more money.
I interviewed at a Manhattan HFT firm (~2015) and that's what they do. The boss noted that "Congress could make a law invalidating our business model" and I realized that would be a good idea. They're not making the world a better place; they're not providing a valuable service; they're just exploiting and extracting and skimming some dollars out of the market. They have money and they're in the right place so their money can grab more money.