Hello, I’ve recently gotten asked by a recruiter what TC I want/expect because I’m interviewing with Citadel Securities (the market making arm of citadel) and I’m not really sure what’s a reasonable ask given my background. I’ve currently got 2.5 YOE and am currently working for a faang-equivalent company (not currently at Goldman). I’ve heard crazy new grad numbers of low 400s, and one of my friends has a data point of 550k at 3 YOE but he got a huge sign on. Should I maybe ask for 450k? Or give a range? In my experience whenever I asked for a range ofc they just give the minimum number as an offer though. And is 200 base possible? I’ve even see some ppl get 225 or 250 base on levels but some of those might be fake tbh. Also I assume negotiation would be important but honestly only a Jane street or HRT offer would prob make them budge and I’m not counting on landing those lol. Pls lmk what you think, thanks! Edit: this is for Quant Dev role in NYC, sorry guys I should’ve included this lol Edit2: not sure if ppl are trolling with choosing 550k+ for just 2.5 YOE…do they actually give offers that high for my level of experience?
1 million
Recruiter would start laughing
No, 1mil is possible
Sorry, it’s late, edited 🤦♂️
Thank you!
What did you do at GS? Were you a FO strat?
Yeah haha how’d you know
How much do FO quants/strats make at Goldman? What about with a PhD?
Will add it to my collection 🙏
What was major and did you get the position at Goldman through a return offer? Congrats on your citadel offer!👏
Major was pure math, and Goldman was not return, I just got a new grad offer
I see, thank you for replying
"Working at Citadel is like having two jobs and both of them are at Amazon." You can actually negotiate and say that with expected working hours of 80+ per week your hourly pay is lower than other offers and they need to bump you 100k. My friend did that and still didn't take the offer lol.
Yea this isn’t true lol. Citadel good teams are 45 hours, even bad teams are like 60hrs.
^yeah this is what I heard. Especially for the market-making side, wlb isn’t that bad for most teams
I got 250/250/100 at 5YOE. Probably could have negotiated a higher signing but sounded like they wouldn’t go higher than 500 for base/bonus.
Thanks for the data point! Since I have only half your experience it feels weird to ask for more than 400 tbh. But I’ve seen 200/200/150 for 3 YOE though probably with lots of negotiation. And I agree that sign-on is much more flexible
Hey are you guys saying 250 base 250k bonus and 100k sign on or what's the 100k?
I’d think about base + bonus and signing separately - base + bonus I’d say asking for more than 400k is reasonable, but as other comments say, let CitSec make the first offer.
Signing I have no good priors on, just as high as you can get, feel free to go ahead and name 150k as a starting point if you want
Interesting. I’ve also seen signing at 150k but I’ve heard they don’t budge much on base + bonus. So 400k+ for base + bonus is reasonable for someone of my experience? And do you think interview performance is a factor? Like if I really knock it out of the park they’d be more willing to give me a high initial base + bonus? Or does interview performance + negotiation only affect the signing component?
550+ recurring and a sign on
Lol no way. Don’t do me dirty, I don’t wanna sound like a clown to my recruiter 🤧
Oh I'm fucking serious
Other: don’t give the first number. Make them give it first. Then if the range is acceptable, say that sounds like a reasonable range. No obligation to give a number. I’ve heard CitSec is mostly cash compensation as well.
Yeah citadel is all cash lol. You have a good point though, might just see what recruiter says and bounce off that
Fair enough, I have always heard “mostly” but that’s a good point lol - guessing they may have meant base + bonus as opposed to all base. Yep, definitely do that with the recruiter.