I left a FAANG SWE role to join Jane Street about 14 months ago. People ask me all the time about the work life balance and culture, and the honest answer is: it depends heavily on your team, your role, and what you actually want.
The comp is exceptional. My total first-year comp came out above what I was making at the FAANG job even though my base was lower. Profit-share is real and meaningful, not a rounding error.
But here's what nobody tells you upfront: Jane Street is genuinely intense in a way that's different from typical big tech. At FAANG there's plenty of room to coast. Here, the caliber of colleagues is noticeably higher, and intellectual engagement is expected. Not crunch culture exactly, but it's not the 4pm-laptop-close life either. Most engineers I know are there 9 or 10 hours, genuinely working.
Culture stuff. The firm is very collaborative within teams, surprisingly so compared to my last job. People share information freely, nobody is hoarding context to look good. The flat structure is real: I've had substantive conversations with very senior traders about technical problems. That part is legitimately different.
Downside: the NYC office-first reality means if you're not in Manhattan you're a second-class citizen, at least for relationship-building. Remote is possible but you'll feel it.
The culture also selects hard for a certain kind of person: curious, self-directed, comfortable with ambiguity, and okay with the fact that you might work next to people who are significantly sharper than you. That's energizing or deflating depending on who you are.
For me, it's been worth it. But I've seen people leave within 18 months because the intensity didn't suit them. You have to be honest with yourself about what you're optimizing for.