Quant Industry
Overview of the quant industry
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Overview of the quant industry
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The major U.S. quant firms are generally based in New York and Chicago.
(table adapted from)
Company
Location
Notes
Member Connection
Akuna
Boston, Chicago
Founded by ex-optiver traders. Meritocratic culture where people are promoted quickly. On the flip-side, stress levels and pressure tend to be on the higher side.
Rohit Chakravarty - Quant Dev Summer 2022
Allston Trading
Chicago
Ansatz Capital
NYC
Similarly to Aquatic, Headlands and Radix, a small but prestigious firm that is willing to pay more than most competitors. Fairly young firm. Uses Python and C++ for QR.
Aquatic
Chicago
AQR
Greenwich
Cliff Asness's firm.
Arrowstreet Capital
Boston
Belvedere
Chicago
Bridgewater
Westport
Day Ralio's firm. Very unique culture.
Citadel
Chicago, NYC
The hedge fund side of Ken Griffin's Citadel. The quants are mostly on the Global Quantitative Strategies team (GQS). Citadel tends to be fairly school-selective.
Citadel Securities
Chicago, NYC
The market making arm of Citadel. The general perception is that the culture tends to be better at Citadel Securities vs Citadel LLC. A good way to get into the interview pipeline is through Citadel's Data Open competition.
James Doredla - Systematic Trading Intern Summer 2021
Cubist
New York City
The quant arm of Steve Cohen's Point72 hedge fund.
DE Shaw
Where Jeff Bezos worked before founding Amazon. Tends to be extremely school-selective, mostly recruiting from ivy leagues and similar.
DRW
Chicago
Perception is that DRWers tend to have a good WLB but teams are usually siloed. One of the first traditional firms that started going into crypto.
Engineers Gate
NYC
Five Rings
NYC
Founded by an ex-Jane-Street guy. Very school-selective, mostly recruiting out of MIT.
Flow Traders
Amsterdam
Primary focus is on ETFs. Pay tends be lower than IMC and Optiver but the office is NYC instead of Chicago.
G-Research
London
GSA Capital
NYC
Headlands Tech
Chicago
Founded by ex-Citadel people. Max Dama works here. Similarly to Ansatz, Aquatic, Headlands and Radix, a small firm that is willing to pay more than most competitors. Known to have a large focus on C++, both among QRs and SWEs.
HRT
Chicago, NYC
The Algo Dev role at HRT is essentially Quantitative Research. HRT's culture seems to be pretty similar to JS and pay is similar too. HRT has a bigger focus on ML with their dedicated HRT AI Labs. HRT, JS and Two Sigma are also known to recruit QRs out of undergrad.
IMC
Chicago
Word is that IMC has the chillest culture out of the three big dutch firms (IMC, Optiver, Flow Traders). Pay tends to be in between Flow Traders and Optiver. Tends to be more focused on the quantiative side than Optiver and Flow. Has one of the highest intern salaries.
Luke Cerone - SWE Intern Summer 2022
Jane Street
NYC
Founded by ex-SIG people. Tends to be more school-agnostic than other firms. Also offers a lot of first-round interviews. General perception of JS is that it has a very comfortable and quirky culture. Specializes in market making.
Jump
Chicago
Fairly school-selective recruiting. Very engineering-focused with siloed teams.
Mako Trading
London
Marshall Wace
NYC
Maven Securities
London
Founded by ex-optiver traders.
Millenium
NYC
Old Mission Capital
Chicago, NYC
OMC used to have an internship but rumor is that they paused the internship program due to the return rate of interns. They do have new grad roles.
Optiver
Chicago
Tends to have the highest pay out of the three big dutch firms (IMC, Optiver, Flow Traders) due their marble bonus system. Larger focus on traders. Traders generally tend to earn considerably more than SWEs at the Dutch firms, especially over time. QR roles are open for graduate students
PDT
NYC
Founded by Pete Muller, very collaborative and secretive culture similar to Rentech. Recruits college students for mainly SWE but some SWE/QR combo roles (dependent on team). Exclusively recruits PhD students for full-time QR roles.
Peak6
Chicago
The internships are geared towards women. The new grad roles are open to everyone.
QuantLab
Houston
Radix
Chicago
Founded by ex-Citadel people. Radix calls SWEs Quantitative Technologists. They don't publicize internships but they do select a handful of interns every year. Just email your resume. Rumor is that they offer the highest internship salaries. Culture is likely most similar to Renaissance.
Renaissance
Setauket- East Setauket
The legendary OG quant fund (medallion). Good luck with this one. You can email your resume and they do sometimes interview normal SWEs but it's very unlikely you'll get an interview for any other role unless you're extra-extraordinary.
SIG
Bala Cynwyd
Has a huge poker culture. Fairly chill culture but pay tends to be on the lower side.
Nihar Joshi - SWE Intern Summer 2021
Squarepoint
NYC
TGS
Irvine
Used to only recruit grad students but recently started recruiting undergrads as well.
Tower Research
NYC
Pretty traditional portfolio manager culture.
TransMarketGroup
Chicago
Two Sigma
NYC
Founded by ex-DE-Shaw people. Collaborative and chill culture. The org is mostly composed of QRs and SWEs. More of a quant hedge fund, with a a smaller market making arm and a venture capital team.
Valkyrie Trading
Chicago
Vatic Labs
NYC
Founded by ex-Jump people.
Virtu
NYC, Austin
Voleon
Berkeley
Specializes in Machine Learning and recruits college students for SWE roles but primarily recruits PhD students for research roles.
Wolverine
Chicago
WorldQuant
NYC
XTX Market
London
Branched out of GSA capital.
Also hires people out of the US. Very focused on research with a lot of people working on cutting-edge Machine Learning. A caveat about their culture can be found in .