Jane Street hired an engineer from Google's unionizing AI team and moved him to Singapore
Google DeepMind staff are well-loved in both big tech and finance. Hedge funds have been poaching staff from the tech giant's AI research division recently, but now electronic trading firm Jane Street is getting in on the act.
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Last month, it hired David Bridson, a senior software engineer in DeepMind's London office. Bridson is now moving to Singapore to join Jane Street, also as a senior software engineer. He spent two and a half years at DeepMind and was listed as a contributor on the publication announcing Google's first iteration of Gemini. Last year, he was also credited for work on Genie, a project focused on creating generative interactive video game environments.
Before all this, Bridson spent 12 and a half years at Bloomberg. He initially worked in its new energy finance team, before transitioning to its London commodities desk. It's not clear what he's doing at Jane Street, but his past commodities experience might provide some indication. Jane Street already trades ETFs with commodity underliers, but it's not clear whether the firm trades commodities directly.
Bridson leaves DeepMind's London office at an interesting time. Around 300 employees (~15% of Google's UK AI staff) are seeking to unionize after the Israel Defence Force was alleged to have used AI systems as part of its conflict with Palestine. Deepmind staff told the FT they think DeepMind technology is in use on the Gaza Strip. Google told the FT that it only deploys AI "responsibly," but multiple staff have walked out of the company over its ties to Israel.
There are other reasons Bridson could want to swap DeepMind for Jane Street. The trading firm pays staff an average of $1.4m per head, which can be a convincing perk.
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