A high-frequency trading firm just hired Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++
Electronic trading firms work on low latency trading systems which, nine times out of ten, are written in C++. Trading firms can pay over $500k for elite engineers who can get the most out of the language; at Susquehanna, those engineers will now be working with the man who invented C++.
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Bjarne Stroustrup announced via LinkedIn that he has joined Susquehanna as a technical fellow on a part time basis. A press release seen by eFinancialCareers states that Stroustrup will be "helping shape the optimization and evolution of the firm’s codebase."
It's not his first role in finance; Stroustrup spent eight years in banking with Morgan Stanley where he was an MD and tech fellow working on "foundational software." He left in 2022, and has since been a full-time professor at Columbia University.
Stroustrup said in the release that "financial software places extraordinary demands on performance, reliability, and maintainability, making it one of the most interesting applications of modern software engineering." He said that he will "explore new ways to apply modern C++ to increasingly complex systems" through his work at Susquehanna.
It seems likely that his role will be similar to that of Herb Sutter at Citadel Securities; Sutter became the market maker's first tech fellow in 2024, joining from Microsoft to lead training initiatives and increase broader engagement with C++ within the firm. Sutter also still works closely with the C++ standards committee and it seems Stroustrup will do the same; Soma Bockelman, Susquehanna's global head of technology, said that the firm is "excited to contribute to the continued advancement of the C++ community while further strengthening the engineering capabilities that power our business."
Roughly half of Susquehanna's 244 open job listings mention C++. Some of the highest paying roles are for engineers working on low latency architecture. Stroustrup said on a podcast earlier this year that these roles are unlikely to be replaced by AI; he said AI generated C++ code in a low-latency context can be "bloated" and is less secure than human-written code.
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