Less political HF/LO firms?

The other guy is right. Try to find a small team if you want to minimize. There will be some degree of politics everywhere. At a smaller group, maybe to a less extent - even then you might get unlucky and get stuck with a bad team / PM. I've worked at / work at a 10 person team and there's some politics but that stuff barely interferes with your work and it's a generally very transparent environment i.e. you know what everyone is upto, but I would say I've been lucky with landing a good team everywhere I've worked. You should try to guage that within your initial conversations with the team. I've heard at larger shops it's bad in some groups, can get bad depending on what level you're at. Heard from a few guys who left to join (centerbridge / anchorage / DK) that there would be instances where they wouldn't get credit for their work, wouldn't really get to work on what they wanted, limited / not the same growth ops within the firm, etc.