Info about good quant funds for researchers
Hi,
I’m a fairly accomplished young researcher in the mathematical sciences thinking of transitioning to the quant world. I’m picky about living locations, but NYC, possibly Chicago, and most of CA are on my list.
I’d be grateful if experts here could share advice about possible good hedge funds for a post PhD quantitative researcher coming from academia. What are the top few places to target? I’m looking for some combination of job security, high compensation, and supportive work environment. (That last means e.g. a good research environment supporting work of some quality and depth, and also not completely crazy expectations around hours of work per week.)
Any tips about which possible funds to look into much appreciated! (I realize some of these jobs might be really tough to land, but I’d like to leave that worry for later, and first figure out what the best targets are…)
Have friends who work at Two Sigma and they all love their jobs. Honestly I am a bit jealous. Seems like their teams have fantastic cultures and the company really cares about their workers.
what role are they? quant devs/researcher/trader?
Quants
look for collaborative funds, 2S, De Shaw, PDT, etc. There are some parts of citadel/MLP that are collaborative, but gotta view them with a grain of salt.
FYI, if you're not a PM with a track record, most tech jobs (FAANG AI groups) can outpay quant finance nowadays. So if you don't like markets, you're gonna hate this job.
Thanks! What I’ve got now from these responses is Two Sigma, DE Shaw, and PDT on my list. Any important differences between these? I do like thinking about the dynamics of markets, so I think I’d have more fun in quant finance than a team at alphabet or meta (I have friends at both). But I’ll take the warning RE comp seriously. (I imagine that as you become more senior, the pay in finance scales up nicely, assuming you survive and are productive?)
Only if you're a PM. if you don't take risk (aka a PM who will gets fired if you lose $ , it's pretty much capped slightly below FAANG).
Beware being a PM and managing other people's money is no joke and can be very stressful. FAANG doesn't have this. Thinking about markets != working in markets.
Also, tech (aka ads really) are also a dynamic system, idk, if I was starting out today and wasn't obsessed with markets, I'd go to tech hands down
what year are you and what do you study?
As others have mentioned the way to succeed in this business is to run risk (eg a portfolio) and make money.
I don't think the firm name brand matters very much (as long as they have say >1B AUM), what is more important is the cultural fit and a streamlined path to developing + running your own trading strategies. Firms that generally are good in this regard include Citadel, Point72, Balyasny, and Millennium. Be aware that job security and expected compensation are negatively correlated--it's an eat what you kill industry.
That being said, you definitely can trade-off expected pay with stability. This is basically the Two Sigma model, as each researcher generally only sees a small piece of the puzzle, but they have tech-like hours and perks. However, despite their flashy marketing campaigns, the pay there is pretty lackluster.
I am a theoretical physicist and have a background in machine learning. I’m finishing up my PhD soon, but have no real rush to get a job.
I have friends at alphabet and meta and have some idea of the pay + RSUs there. My impression was that a successful somewhat senior quant could pull down 1M and this would outpace most tech compensation. Have I heard wrong? (But yes, I am also more interested in markets than I am in ads…if I went the tech route I’d probably opt instead for something like AI research.)
1M for a quant seems impossible to me except if: running risk/a book, but so instability comes with it, OR management position like head of research managing other quant researchers
And even so, 1 million is still hard to reach, especially if u value ur work life balance
The "collaborative" quant places typically don't have any path to trading your own book as a PM (in theory you can get in senior management, but there are very few openings like that). While the lifestyle is good and pay is decent (higher than tech to start off but lower later on), it becomes very hard to get a new job after 5-7 years if you have never managed a book. Unlike tech there are very few senior openings except for PM seats, so I think the MM places are actually better career wise.
That is an interesting perspective. If my goal is to do this for maybe 10 years, then transition to a rather different career (with some savings, but not imagining anything too tremendous over that timescale), would one of the collaborative quant shops make more sense? Joining a multi manager in a small team seems awfully risky.
I had a similar background as you at one point and think I would have been better off in an MM pod. It's a worse lifestyle but you learn the full PM process and your experience is much more portable to other firms. These big quant firms are less collaborative than they appear, and surviving for 10 years depends on a lot on internal politics and factors outside your control. It's not like tech where you can just go to another firm.
Despite having worked for several HF at this point, I'm in a niche space, so I don't always hear/see about the way the big names operate. Which of the major names besides Two Sigma are a so-called "collaborative" fund?
I would have recommended Voleon but I hear the reputation has really slipped and lots of researchers and engineers have quit:
https://www.teamblind.com/post/Voleon-comp-structure-JAnmpV4U
It might still be worth checking them out though
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