Will starting at a small systematic trading firm with some public bond financing issues hurt my chances of moving to a prop shop later?

Hi all,

I’m currently considering a first job offer as a junior quant researcher/trader at a small systematic trading firm based in Western Europe. They appear to run fully automated intraday strategies and publish performance statistics (VAMI, Sharpe/Sortino, max drawdown, etc.) on LinkedIn. From what I can tell, they do have real trading infrastructure (IBKR, execution logs, etc.).

However, there are a couple of things that give me pause:

• The firm (or a related entity) has issued high-yield bonds to finance growth.
• A consumer watchdog previously published a warning related to the broader group’s bond structure and revenue transparency.
• The company presents fairly strong performance numbers publicly, but I haven’t seen independent third-party verification.
• They are relatively small and not a well-known institutional name.

My long-term goal would be to move into a more established prop shop (e.g., Jane Street / Optiver / IMC / Flow Traders-type environment, or a reputable mid-sized prop firm).

My question is:

If I spend 1–2 years at a small systematic firm with some public controversy around its financing structure (even if I personally just work on research/trading), would that realistically hurt my chances of later moving to a strong prop shop?