Ask HN: Recently offered a job as financial quant, but I'm having moral qualms
Hi, obvious throwaway account.<p>I'm finishing up my PhD in machine learning, which luckily enough had a good dose of "big data" and hard-core maths. I recently got an offer for a position in quantitative investment research, in a company that does HFT and algo-trading in general.<p>The pros are that this seems like an interesting job, with very intelligent people which deal with cutting-edge research problems. Also, I've come to understand that in general compensation is better when compared with other tech jobs. Lastly, my programming capabilities are quite weak actually, and I'm happy to have a place that definitely wants me in. I support a family and securing a lucrative job months ahead of graduation is meaningful to me.<p>The major problem I have is the common perception of algo-trading and HFT as "amoral", detrimental to the world economy, and so on. I've even got this sense from a few discussions here, though it always seemed like a vague aversion more than a well argued position.<p>I was wondering what do people around here think about this issue?