Have started working at a low-profile hybrid consultancy / HFT startup. Loads of hires, no tests, just an interview. There are three main groups: (i) infrastructure, (ii) development and (iii) quantitative research. Applied for (iii), during interview suddenly was told that would spend the first 3 months working on (i)/(ii) to get me up to speed -- which is fine and kind of makes sense. In the contract it turned into 7 a month probationary period for (i)/(ii) with no mention of (iii). On the job started working on a database / MATLAB -- both am an expert on -- so zero learning there; would be good to work on C++ and gain some solid object orientated experience, but it seems unlikely so far. I am a quick learner, have an impeccable academic record, a postgraduate degree from a top-tier. In contrast there are people in "quant research" with not amazing backgrounds, who are doing "NLP" research -- although have not heard of "NLP" before. I feel like I am being pushed into (i) and (iii) seems increasingly unlikely; during a recent chat with my manager was reassured that I would still do quant eventually, but would need to do further partial (i) work on demand and that it is hoped I would be understanding. Am I being "shafted" here and should run for the woods; my spider sense is tingling? The whole place itself might be no more in half a year.

Maybe you should PM WFNYC.

Thank you, bearish -- will give it a try.

I suspect that over time I've acquired a bit of a reputation for having some clue about this line of work...So please assign some weight to my view that they you're being fucked with, I hear variants of this all too often.You manager is lying to you.

I'm afraid Dominic is right. Seems something is not right here but without knowing your background and what they do, I can't say for sure why this is happening. In my career, I've been pretty straight forward with my hires and let them know where they stand and where they can improve. Send me your CV and I'll take a look. Email me, waiman at waiman@windforceventures.com . That's my VC fund just fyi if you go on our site.

QuoteOriginally posted by: DominicConnorI suspect that over time I've acquired a bit of a reputation for having some clue about this line of work...So please assign some weight to my view that they you're being fucked with, I hear variants of this all too often.You manager is lying to you.That's putting it politely.I think Dominic coined the phrase "industry standard lies", and that's whats happening here.Additionally careers are martingales so you will find it increasingly difficult to get out of the IT ghetto unless you flee for the exits NOW.

Confirmed. There is now no talk of me doing front office work. I do have an alternative front office option, albeit less quanty (excel); more product-specific, somewhat better paid. My current place has quite a low pay/hours ratio; is doing front office work on the side and offering ideas to management in the hopes of being front-office full time naive or even feasible / reasonable (considering so little time remains after work)?

We need to look at the utility functions of the players in this game:Your boss has a stream of things to get done, you can do them. If he allows you to move then has to find someone else, show them how things are done at your firm and look less good to FO.The FO see lots of ideas, yours will have to be very good to be worth the hassle of moving you.Be clear that I'm not saying to give up on idea generation, its good practice.Generic management want stability, you don't.Note that I'm not saying anyone is a bad person, or stupid, just that their objectives and yours don't intersect as well as you'd like.Be clear that although some of my phrases like "@industry standard lies@ and @your career is a martingale@ seem to be recognised, I very rarely say to people like you, @do X@, because I know so few of the facts.But...I'd guess that in 3 years time there's an 80% chance that your work will be pretty much the same as it is now and because you will have the sort of deep knowledge you get from building infrastructure, they'd be extremely resistant to letting you change track. It does happen.So out does look better than in.One part of this is what they do when you say you are leaving. You haven't mentioned any skill used in your work that sounds impossible to replace, but you are a known and trusted quantity and know how the inhouse stuff works. That means they will make a counter offer. The simplest and most honest counter offer is money, it's observable.They may offer to resolve the issue of the work and that goes to how much you trust them, which I can't guage from here, but my default position is skepticism.