Absolute highest new grad comp you've seen
I just have this unyielding curiosity about the highest new grad compensation package out there, across any industries, not just finance. (a firm's standardized offer that the entire new grad cohort would get)
I'll bite if this is for London (GBP):
In tech have heard of a 100k base and ~50k stock allocation plus 15k relocation cash package for straight out of undergrad
In finance have seen multiple packages that came to ~120k all-in pre-bump so probably ~140k post-bump
For London I have seen ~£330k for a new grad (MSc) quant
Do you know what type of quant? E.g. pure quant researcher, or "quant trader" which some firms have as a hybrid role.
What type of firm? E.g. HF, algo prop shop.
Can you be more specific with regard to a fund or even a strategy because otherwise that seems unrealistic for several reasons:
London. 400£. PhD. Market-making.
Jesus
Moelis first years apparently cleared over $240k this year. I’m sure CVP had somewhere around that range as well if you counted the signing bonus. Not bad I’d say. Otherwise this question would need to be adjusted for location and COL. Pretty sure Harris Williams wins in that regard.
There was a kid from HYP who was an IMO gold medalist (and i think scored the highest anyone had in decades?) and got a 750k signing bonus from Citadel. He had offers from Jane St, 2s, DE Shaw, etc, played them against each other, and Citadel won the bidding war. Safe to assume he cleared $1m in comp his first year.
That being said, that situation is like being a first round NBA draft pick in that it’s so extremely rare. Actually, it’s more like a once in a generation Lebron James type of talent.
I don’t know this kid personally but I do know someone who knows him personally.
So how much of what you heard do you think is reliable? For instance, the maximum score on IMO is 42 and some people get that every year. Is comp at market-makers a bit interesting due to the non-competes?
Pretty sure the number is reliable, wasn't really sure on the once in a decade thing. I know he had a pretty stringent non compete but do not know how long it was for.
Prop firm gave 1 million given to a top CS/math guy (with certain conditions ofc). When I say top, I mean I want this guy on my team and not against me
No I am not kidding.
You have colour on the anomalies above, though in general for undergrads in Canada/US, the highest total comps are from prop trading firms like JS, Optiver, etc.. I think all-in they reach 400-450k USD -- could be a little off.
I have a friend who went into niche consulting and made 140-180 first years due to rapid increase in value of equity options since start date, after adjusting for hours worked (50 seems like more than he worked), he probably had the highest hourly I’ve seen out of ug.
600k at citadel. Guy was an IMO gold medalist and was incredibly talented.
RenTech pays 7 figures right out of PhD pretty regularly, I think
Actually, this is not true. I know one guy who got offers from RenTech and couple of other firms, the highest offer was approx 800K$. And the highest offer was Citadel. He was not fresh PhD by any means and he was definitely one of the top demanded people during those years :)
He rejected RenTech.
How does this make it not true? It means he did not get a 7 figure comp. I am not suggesting that this is the baseline comp for RenTech, only that it happened more than once.
Out of interest, what type of PhD is needed to apply for those kinds of roles? Also, mind if I PM a question or two about it?
This isn’t true, at least not the regularity at which this happens. Renaissance is incredibly secretive, but also has a (fair or not) reputation of being a mixed bag on compensation, including frustration from newer employees on the ability to invest in medallion. There is also some public info on lawsuits about base pay, etc of employees that paint a bit of the picture.
800k-1.2M for a new grad in a quiet quant HF that's been around forever. median Y1 comp for fresh undergrad quants is 400-600k
I have a very hard time believing this (and I’ve been in this industry for a long time), specifically referring to your median number. There is little (or no) incentive to pay 1st year quants that much. If your competition isn’t doing it, if other industries aren’t doing it, then why would you do it? You can get the top talent for cheaper. Outliers always happen (and people bid one competitor against another, etc), but the top paying places top out around $350-400k, so a median well above that is unlikely. Anyway, I haven’t seen median numbers anywhere near that, and like I said, I’ve been at this for a long time and know many “top” people across the “good” funds.
Totally align that nobody is paying fresh grads as much in any other industry, and sorry I meant median among "top" quant shops. Because the interviewing skills are so standardized across shops, it's much more likely that a person collects 2-3 offers of the "top" places (and the highest paying are not always the most well known).
In addition to the playing offers against each other, this has caused interesting clauses around time sensitive signing bonuses when one gets the offer and when one tries to negotiate up. I've seen Citadel offer time sensitive signing bonuses >=50k to hook on interns, so I feel north of 100k is pretty common among full time offers. I've also seen pnl tie in offered in lieu of some comp so the sky's the limit there.
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