Deleted
deleted deleted deleted deleted deleted deletedddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddfffdfffffffffff
Trending Content - Hedge Fund Forum
Career Resources
WSO Free Modeling Series - Now Open Through
June 30, 2026
9 Free Financial Modeling Lessons
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
+Bonus: Get 27 financial modeling templates in swipe file
High Finance Applications
Guaranteed
Get at least one offer GUARANTEED
- 1:1 support
- 92% success rate
- 2,000+ mentor network
- Unlimited Live bootcamps
- AI for resume + LinkedIn
- Networking automation tools
- HireVue simulation tool
- Full course library
- Private Slack community
- 20hrs of mocks
- + much more...
Based on the most helpful WSO content, here are some insights into Citadel and DRW that might help you decide between the two internship offers:
Citadel Fixed Income & Macro (FIM)
DRW Quantitative Trading (QT)
Trade-offs Between Prop and Hedge Fund (HF)
Prop Trading (DRW):
Hedge Fund (Citadel):
Conclusion
Consider your long-term career goals, the type of work environment you thrive in, and the specific skills you want to develop when making your decision.
Sources: Citadel Global Equities (pay, culture, career path, lifestyle), Ask Me Anything - Current Prop Trader/Advice for people wanting to make it/Breaking in, Most meritocratic hedge fund?, Citadel Physical Commodities, Q&A: HF out of undergrad, ~5 years later
Interesting that people go GFI > DRW.
If you still want to do macro, I’d pick Citadel FIM. Note that the technical expertise for DRW would be completely different than the quantitative skillsets required for systematic macro. The quantitative skillsets required for Systematic macro come in the form of portfolio/risk management, time series regression analysis & signal generation, etc.
Citadel FIM is going to be your best choice in terms of developing a deep understanding/framework of how macro drives markets as well as gain a plethora of macro indicators. From there you could test that framework to develop signals via regression analysis. Once you start reading the existing literature on Markowitz, Fama French, Black Litterman, Sharpe, etc (or just read paleologo), you will develop the better understanding of risk/portfolio management and design a trading system.
From there, you can backtest your systematic macro strategy in Python.
But my main point is, if you want to pursue systematic macro, Citadel FIM will provide a better starting point than DRW.
Thanks for the info! Could you elaborate more on the career progression in the macro space? Afaik FIM don't do fully systematic stuff so most are low - medium frequency with trader manual intervention. I'm still at an early stage and not sure if I want to go in this direction or to the quant space. In your opinion, what would be an ideal pod to join (just hypothetically so that I have a sense of what factors to consider) to maximize my learning opportunities and career progression?
Also, how would you compare DE Shaw and BAM's macro teams to FIM?
I can’t really comment on the career progression within macro itself as it is firm dependent. But generally speaking, the role progression for discretionary macro is just like any other fund, where roles can be divided into research, trading, portfolio management, & risk analysis (risk & portfolio management are two sides of the same coin) type roles.
In terms of the ideal pod, I don’t think I can give you an a good answer that would satisfy you. Still, I found that the biggest strength of macro is really its versatility/jack of all trades nature. So I wouldn’t really put a restriction in terms of best practices for learning. But if you want to understand investing a little bit better, I would recommend reading up on factor investing (Fama French, Barra, CAPM, etc), portfolio management (Markowitz, Black Litterman, Risk Parity, etc), and just general product/asset expertise (Fabozzi for bonds, Gatto for credit, Hull for Options & Derivatives, McKinsey for stock valuation).
As for macro, there’s a lot of books out there. Some of my favorites include Richard Koo’s Holy Grail of Macroeconomics (a deep macro analysis of Japan’s Lost Decades), Sebastian’s More Money Than God (it’s more of a biography of the legends within macro but still fascinating regardless), McGee’s Applied Financial Macroeconomics and Investment Strategy (a practitioner’s guide to business cycle investing), and Howard Marks’ Mastering the Market Cycle.
Finally, I would rank
FIM > DE Shaw > BAM
Ut sed accusamus iure alias ab voluptatem molestias qui. Nihil ex repudiandae repudiandae vitae dignissimos quia.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...