As someone who has interviewed thrice and passed once, I disagree. Jane Street is extremely good at marketing themselves; before I ever worked there I received over $500 worth of "swag" (including a free iPad) just for attending talks and hiring events. The official recruiting strategy is grassroots where recruiters have anonymous reddit/hn/blind accounts to praise the company semi-anonymously. So you have a bunch of accounts posing as real employees or students talking up the company and the prestige of working there.
They sell exclusivity and mystery, but they definitely pay top of market salaries. I don't personally believe the actual interviews are any harder than top FAANG companies but they did seem to recruit exclusively from FAANG and/or top engineering schools.
As someone who has interviewed thrice and passed once, I disagree. Jane Street is extremely good at marketing themselves; before I ever worked there I received over $500 worth of "swag" (including a free iPad) just for attending talks and hiring events. The official recruiting strategy is grassroots where recruiters have anonymous reddit/hn/blind accounts to praise the company semi-anonymously. So you have a bunch of accounts posing as real employees or students talking up the company and the prestige of working there.
They sell exclusivity and mystery, but they definitely pay top of market salaries. I don't personally believe the actual interviews are any harder than top FAANG companies but they did seem to recruit exclusively from FAANG and/or top engineering schools.