2023 COMP / BONUS THREAD
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside):
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class):
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus):
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus):
Notes / Performance:
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Career Resources
Location too would be helpful
You go first
1 YoE
Only fans (strategy: solo)
2023 comp (base/bonus) 0 + $10m
that’s dope
No replies
Must have been a crappy year
YoE: 2y
Quant
2023: 750k, a portion deferred
Notes: meh, could’ve been better
If this is not bs, do you hold a PhD? What kind of strategy?
No PhD, BS only. Think similar to D.E. Shaw
is this quant trading?
How can I get on track to become a quant? I’m in 11th grade and would love to become a quant — however I am very lost in the whole process
how old are you? where’d you go to school? I’m a highschool student — would love advice on how to get into quant trading.
4 yrs out of school - London
Intersection between Quant/fundamental
2023 - 125k + 1.8m
2022 - 125k + 2.75m
very happy, was expecting around 1.1m bonus but my bosses knew I had some pretty large offers to leave and turned them down so think he rewarded the loyalty.
You have some good bosses. I know people who got their bonuses slashed in half for simply interviewing elsewhere many months before year end.
I mean they are understanding because its that common time when I have been running risk for a couple years now and done pretty well that I have basically moved into junior pm role. Then when places are offering to 6x your risk allocation you have to be pretty stupid to not hear them out.
You’re making over £2m 4 years out of school as a 26 yo?
I went to uni a year early and UK Bsc degree only 3 years, so 24 years old (turning 25 in a couple months). I work on a super lean team in nat gas trading hence the ridiculous compensation over last couple years
jesus
(deleted to preserve anonymity)
its gotta be him haha he seems like an absolute genius
Damn must’ve been a bad year…
6/5
MM l/s
$1.6m
$900k
+LSD alpha on carve-out. Solid but not anazing
Sector?
What's LSD alpha?
Low single digit return on GMV of my carve-out. We get paid on alpha PnL (definitionally almost all pod PnL is alpha anyway)
Are these numbers normal or are they outliers?
They’re all shit posting
What? Not everyone had a bad year…
3/3
MM
2023: 175k (PM blew up)
2022: 300k
how do you feel about your number? did you pod end significantly below the benchmark?
Better than being 0’d out… what’s your base? Also interested in comp progression as I’m also pretty junior
base is 175. no bonus for 2023.
i assume you did one of the grad programs. Did you get placed on a new pod?
For everyone wondering this is a much more realistic comp number than the posters above
Rough but thanks for sharing
MM, sophomore year summer internship
Base: $200,000 for 2 months ($1.2MM annualized)
Bonus: $3M "PNL" bonus ($18MM annualized)
Midwest numbers are crazy
My career thus far:
2017: school 25k
2018: analyst 0 years experience 250k
2019: analyst 1 years experience 200k if annualized. however, I did not earn all this money because our pod was fired mid year and i was unemployed for several months.
2020: analyst 2 years experience 350k
2021: analyst 3 years experience 525k
2022: Last year being a full time analyst. 775k all in comp. It was a good year though. normal comp for an analyst would be more like the previous year ~ 500k. at some point your comp as an analyst is just capped. If you become a career analyst for life, you can see your total comp rise to as high as $1M averaged across multiple years.
2023: I'm on a hybrid structure of analyst/PM so the firm decided to give me 50% of the discretionary bonus of an analyst. 400k discretionary bonus + base. 1.1M formulaic bonus with significant % deferred.
2024: I'm a full PM now. Expect to make ~2M all in comp with much higher allocation. however there's obviously a ton of variance around that #
I would say my outcome is in the 90th percentile of people I know from my graduating cohort. A more median comp trajectory for someone who joined the MMHF world is starting at 200k year 1 and getting paid an average of about 350k per year for the next 5 years. This is averaging over outcomes which include getting fired, getting zero bonus, normal years and amazing years.
People on this forum have the following misconceptions about HF comp
1. Someone's gonna pay you millions per year with no career risk to be a lifetime analyst. General rule: no risk no book no $.
2. PMs have it so much better. I'm getting paid about 3x as much this year compared to doing analyst work. I think it's fair when you consider that I could be canned for losing money, half my comp is deferred, and my income is basically a RNG. However, the lifestyle is certainly better.
3. comp is a straight line function of years of experience. I've been canned. I've had 0 bonus years. You should expect this in your career as well.
Gotta love the confidence of projecting a $2M bonus with formulaic payouts not even halfway through January
Congrats. So you graduated in 2018? Making PM at that age seems like at the very least a >90th percentile outcome. Was this your first job out of ugrad?
phd. the 25k was my stipend. used to be a quant in year 1. now i'm just in discretionary macro.
Great post, you had a much better career than any of the quants I know. As you said, most places won't let you stay as an analyst long term but there is not always a path to pm/sub-pm either. I think it's harder to do in quant than fundamental or macro.
What do you trade? Like what’s your General strategy? Macro, relative value, L/S, etc??
I run a market timing strategy in an extremely liquid energy market. I sell risk premium, take directional bets based on our internal s/d trends vs market and trade a small number of technical factors. If I had to guess this year it was 60/25/15 contributions from the 3 sub portfolios.
Jesus why am I wasting away in PE
Cuz when you sleep 4 hours a night you can actually sleep
Actually this
Remembering seeing a post a while back how all corporate careers are actually priced in accordance to risk/reward. Honestly I dont think its that far off. Couple poor decisions and some bad luck and not managing the associated stress correctly and boom career over at a hf. Also a large portion of luck involved in getting into a seat under a PM you really like that will teach you the right way. Similar to what was said above I remember when I first started managing risk I would wake up every night at 3am and not be able to go back to sleep till I had checked the news to make sure I wasn't about to lose a fuck ton of money from a black swan event, its rather stressful. PE is still the best risk adjusted return as far as finance jobs go as its outcomes are almost entirely derived from having over a certain level of intelligence and working really hard.
As someone that could have gone the quant route, I made this exact analysis and thus went the PE way. But I do have to say now I have a tinge of regret as knowing myself better I could have taken on a bit more career volatility. In my role (ASO1) I just don't see a way to a 7 figure year until 10 years post graduation (talking about actually receiving carry, not just vesting on paper), if I last that long.
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 10/9
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): SM multi-strategy fund
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): 300k
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): 3.5M
Notes / Performance: Obviously performance was poor (flat on the year). First time having a bad year, hope to bounce back in 2024.
Are you at one of the large multi-start type funds (DK Farallon Elliott Baupost type shop)? How does pay work - is it formulaic (% of pnl -- alpha pnl or total pnl) or discretionary?
I am at a medium-sized multi-strat.
Pay is somewhere between formulaic and discretionary: teams generally make a % of pnl but there is some range/discretion around that and the split seems to be more flat (PM doesn't take 80% of bonus pool). I'm probably most akin to a jr PM the MM model (pay depends on the subset of investments I manage, and 2023 was my floor, but my typical % is in the mid single digits of pnl on my trades).
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 9/7
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): SM credit
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): 750k
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): 600k
can you give a range on how large the fund is?
I posed in another post about this although with final numbers ended up a little bit better:
SM multi asset
2022: $5.5mm
2023: $1mm
2023 wasn’t good, basically at the floor for me (with management fee sharing etc).
YOE?
14
How many YOE?
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 3.5 / 1.5
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): MM rates
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): $100k + $100k
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): $100k + $50k
Notes / Performance: Ok but not great year. Up low-mid single digit %. Mildly disappointed with my share of the comp pool, but we didn't blow up and I didn't get fired.
YOE: 4, 2 on buy side
SM $1-5bn AUM
2023 comp: $150 + 400 = $550k
Fund had an avg year, underperformed benchmark but still some alpha
Confused. Isn’t performance above the benchmark alpha? How can you have alpha if you underperform the benchmark?
benchmark might be SPX but your net might be lower than 100%
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 6 / 3
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): SM - multistrategy
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): $150 + $240
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): $150 +$175
Notes / Performance: Getting axed as strategy is getting cut.
What’s the strategy?
Strategy getting cut in a SM? Aren’t most SMs one strategy?
Its a SM Multi-strategy
No, there are multi-strat SMs kinda an in-between of traditional SM and MM
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 7/5
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): SM L/S
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): $250 + $425
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): MF PE for last 3 years so irrelevant
Notes / Performance: firm did well but narrow range of comp give first year in industry
Would you mind sharing ballpark AUM/IP?
Don’t want to give specifics so >$1B AUM and relatively lean.
How are you liking L/S compared to MF PE so far?
Much better in almost every way. My personal belief is that the average PE seat is better than the average SM L/S seat, but the best SM L/S seats are better the best PE seats. I was at a very well respected group in MF PE and my colleagues were great, but at the end of the day, it’s a transaction-oriented job and I hated the grind / giving up your life until you get higher up the totem pole and even then, I didn’t like the idea of being on 6-8 boards, attending 6-8 board meetings per quarter and constantly traveling for management meetings / other portco events. If you actually think about it, it’s an insane amount of travel (6 board meetings / quarter + 3 random portco meetings / quarter + 5 management meetings / quarter + 5 sourcing meetings / quarter and average 2 travel days for each of these meetings). The above is more than 150 days of travel per year and that’s a pretty conservative estimate. Sure you can combine board meetings or dial in to some, but the point is that you are constantly on the road as a senior PE professional and that’s not something I wanted. You sacrifice a lot of things (e.g., family, pets, hobbies, health, etc.) and there are a lot of different ways to make money with having a little bit more control.
YoE: 2/2
SM L/S Equity
2023 Comp: 150 + 185
Fund has a fine to bad year. We had a small HWM so no performance fees.
What does HWM mean?
High water mark
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 5/5
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): SM Credit/Distressed
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): $150 + $620
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): $150 + $250
Notes / Performance: Strong year
Can I PM?
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 4/2
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): MM
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): $160 + $230
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): $140 + $180
Notes / Performance: Poor year, would expect $500+ in 2024
YoE: 1/1
Strategy: LO
TC: $200k
Mind if I ask what tier shop you’re at? Seems like above average comp
One of the tier one shops. It definitely is good comp, I'm very happy with it. I also interviewed with shops that were in the low $100s, and one that wasn't even 100k all-in lol. Seems like there's a lot of variance in terms of first year LO comp.
Huge amount of LARPing in this thread
way less t han usual actually
10/5
SM Credit
1200
600
Above benchmark
Congrats. I will be starting my career at a Liquid Credit seat shortly. I would love to learn more about the HF world. Can I PM you?
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 2.5/1.5
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): Credit LO
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): 220k, 130/90
Notes / Performance: Meh performance, base raised to 170k
How do you like credit LO? I'm a junior in equity LO, but seems like the secular outlook for credit is much better (alpha generation / asset flows).
I like it, we're arent a traditional LO Credit, more special situationsy/shittier companies. Hours are phenomenal compared to banking, regularly <40 hours a week and the work is interesting. We usually get big enough where we can steer outcomes and such so its interesting work, definitely more opportunity to add alpha in this environment
Out of curiosity what would you ballpark performance at? I think I'm in a similar seat as yours, just a year ahead in experience and I feel like in a LO seat the performance swings unless dramatic don't really move comp around much at the junior level.
For context my numbers below:
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 3.5/2.5
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): Credit LO
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): 310k, 170/140
Notes / Performance: Performance was roughly in line with HY/LL markets (so call it 12-14%) and had strong reviews
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 3.5 / 2
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): SM - L/S
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): 335 / (135 + 200)
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): 275 / (125 + 150)
Notes / Performance: fund had a great year, personal contribution lagged peers
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): >10 / 6
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): Multi-manager L/S
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): ~$5mm
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): ~$3.5mm
Notes / Performance: Senior Analyst with a carve out and HSD payout. Putting up really good numbers obviously - this is not an average outcome. My advice to anyone in this business is (if you're good) get to a multi-strat ASAP and get a formulaic payout.
which asset class?
Can I send you a dm?
Great year, well done. Curious, someone that runs a large carve / capable of putting up $30-70m of pnl could get a great pm seat somewhere. And with your comp #s I’d assume you have quite a bit of deferred comp. Would you mind sharing (relatively) that guarantee #s you’ve been offered given someone in your situation (senior analyst with $5-10m of deferred comp I’m guessing)? I’d think most platforms would offer a 2x uplift?
Agree with above. C/M/P72 would pay good money to jump
Haven't bothered with PM processes yet.. been in my seat <3 years so have been focused on building the track record and scaling up. Imagine I could get a guarantee of a few years of my historic P&L run rate at a PM payout in addition to my deferred bought out. Trying not to think about it because I'm extremely happy where I am.
If you are actually putting up ~50m PnL you are doing yourself a disservice staying as an Analyst. Unless you can attribute massive value to being on your PM's team he's basically skimming 50% of your comp from you for doing diddly squat. Your payout should be at least 15% not HSD - that is how sub-PMs get comped at top platforms.
Yes, obviously I am not staying as an analyst. Trust me nobody needs to tell someone running a sleeve that they should get their own book. That’s the only thing I’ve thought about since I started putting up good numbers.
I have a formulaic, but it seems to have become retroactively malleable. As a short-specialist, this is particularly material. How would you suggest exploring multi strats? I’m more familiar with MM & traditional SM
i think op meant podshop - MLP CIG BALY maybe P72. he said Multi-manager L/S + technically podshop is multi-strat. Havent heard a ton of formulaic setups at SMs, mind sharing how yours works and why you want something new?
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 6 / 4
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): SM L/S
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): $1.2m
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): $500k
Notes / Performance: Was a good year and PM was unusually generous across the team given recent churn. Last year was a bad year.
"PM" and "unusually generous" two words you don't usually hear next to each other. Congrats.
Congrats! I am a student trying to learn more about the HF world. Can I PM?
Curious on AUM here?
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 4.5/4.5
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): Equities
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): €88k + €50k
Notes / Performance: First full year here
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 6.5 / 4.5
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): MM Equities
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): $200k + $400k
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): PE so n/a
Notes / Performance: Book did well. First year in so not a huge bonus.
Isn’t $600k a lot for a first year?
Maybe, but bonus could be a $0 this year so wouldn’t put too much weight in 1 year,
YOE: 8/3 Strategy: MM equities 2023: $175k + $600k 2022/2021: around $300k all in both years Notes: book did pretty well and was a top performer within the book.
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): .5/.5
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): SM Event Driven
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): $75k +
$40k
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): school
Notes / Performance: Fund had a decent year. Was told I should be paying my PM tuition instead of getting a bonus. Not NYC. Still learning the ropes so no complaints.
Lol this comment. There’s some truth to it, but don’t let them fuck you for too long.
Buddy there are people getting 300+ with no experience… time to shop around
Is the $75k pro rated or total? If its total, that's criminal, you can't live reasonably on ~$4k of monthly income after tax in any major city.
I’d watch out, this is so low it might limit future oppty’s if you stay >2.5 yrs. There’s a lot of cheap PMs but 75 either says care none about the quality of analyst they’re getting or it’s subscale
YoE (since Grad / on Buyside): 3/2
Strategy (SM / MM / Asset Class): 650mm AUM L/S +15% on year
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): 365k (150 / 215)
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): 200k (100 / 100)
Notes: Honestly whelmed. We only have 4 IPs, so there’s plenty of bonus money to go around. I had significant contributions too IMO. I’m learning quite a bit so I’m probably staying for one more year, but I’m jumping if I get a good offer.
You make good money for 2 years of BS experience. Your pay is going up at a good rate. If you’re learning I’d stick around until your pay flatlines despite good performance. Realistically, how much do you expect to make at this point?
It’s not that I should be making more at this point, more so that this is seemingly the ceiling in pay at my particular shop. Due to the type of strategy that we run, this level of performance is considered a really good year. This bonus is my PM being “generous” in his view. Like you said, I’m doing well for someone with only 2 years of experience, but if this is the cap, I’d rather leave sooner than later.
Yoe: 3/1
MM Consumer Tech Internet pod
2023: 175k / $230k good year I had a unique event that bought me some cred with PM and sr analyst.
2022: banking shit comp
This year is tracking really well so far, depending on dn fluctuations I’d say my PM will take a very risk adverse approach in some low vol spreads.. again dn is the most important factor
What’s “dn”?
Deez Nutz
YOE: 2.5/1.5 (first full year at HF)
TMT Tiger Cub <$1bn AUM
$100k base / $100k bonus
Performed better than SPX on both absolute and risk-adjusted basis (our net is like ~30%).
feels light
With that experience you could prob make $300-600k total if you were at a top MM. Source: I'm same level of experience and other friends at my MM
So much for "tiger cub" and "prestigious S/M"
Not prestigious fund, just a smaller sized Tiger Cub. Chose SM cause they gave me offer and MM didn’t, no rocket science here.
Fired from tiger cub. Whole pod laid off.
Analyst 2: 250k base —> social security :)
2022 comp: 600k total
Background: Joined MFPE out of undergrad: 2Y PE/2Y tiger cub
Reason for laying off was a short position we held onto for far too long, underperformed S&P with substantial beta. I’ll take 6 months out probably
You were working under your dad at a London BB 3 weeks ago? What changed
OP obviously lying
you were laid off because of a single short not working out? sorry to hear
YoE - 3/1
Strategy - MM
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): 175 + 225
What did your pod return?
"Good not great"
YoE - 6/6
Strategy - L/S SM, sub $2bn
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): 195 + 600
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): 165 + 360
Notes: Good performance all around, DD % returns every yr
when people cite AUM is it gross or net exposure?
Would imagine net
AUM = stated in net
GMV = stated in gross
YoE - 3/2
Strategy - MM
Total 2023 Comp (Base + Bonus): $525k
Total 2022 Comp (Base + Bonus): $200k (first year with the pod)
Notes: London office, P72/ Millennium/ Citadel
How did your comp jump up like that? Did you get a sleeve in your 2nd year?
Definitely not, that comp is fairly typical for a junior analyst in a pod in a decent year.
YOE: 6, 1.5 years at current fund
aum: $1.5B
style: l/s equity + liquid credit sleeve
fund return: +11%, net exposure of 50%
role: quant supporting fundamental strategy
comp:
base: 210k, bonus 115k
YoE: 3/3
Strat: LO Equities
2023: $160k + $125k
2022: $125k + $70k
Note: outperformed sector bench both years, 2024 base raised to $200k so TC should land around ~$400k
can i dm u
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