Top pay = definitely above 300-400 for Senior developers (FANG or above) I have heard from multiple sources that Two Sigma / Citadel are among the top payers. HRT has a great technical culture I believe but not sure of the TC. Also not sure if Jane Street / De Shaw fall in the same category as above . 1) Are all five of these top tier ? Did I miss some ? 2) On the working culture, heard Citadel has lot of red flags due to WLB and firings. Any red flags with the others above ?
Jane street pays $300k for new grad devs. SMH should’ve prepped harder for them
I think it's typically only $250k unless you're including a signing bonus.
Only Lol
From what I've heard chatting with folks from other firms, I think we're at the top for senior dev comp. Certainly above 2s and DE, not so sure about citadel.
From what I've seen JS and TS are similar for middle of the pact devs, in fact often quants at TS edge out traders at JS. You might be right for the top of the top performers? I'm not sure I don't have too many datapoints there. I'm pretty sure Citadel and DE Shaw pay crazy for the best of the best as it's pretty eat what you kill there. I've seen one a few offers from HRT but they definitely pay top dollar too. Do you have some extra data points?
Sorry, I meant comp for top senior devs. If you have numbers I'm happy to be proven wrong. I don't have enough data points to know what middle of the pack looks like here.
HRT and DE Shaw have ultra high comp but your chance of getting in is close to 0. Citadel pay is amazing but has bad WLB. They are willing to spend absurd money on new grads for some reason. Job security is offset by a high base and non compete contract, which I think is a plus (people who are more greedy for money would see it as a negative). JSC I think starts new grads a lot lower (though I hear it's been bumped up in the last 2 years), but senior dev comp is pretty strong. Two sigma I hear mixed things, some people are paid a lot others aren't. Seems to be in line with JS, not quite like Citadel. I think out of everyone mentioned they are the easiest to get into. There's a lot of small companies willing to pay for talent too, they might be riskier though.
Two Sigma definitely pays competitively and is consistently at or above TC at Google/Facebook. The culture is pretty great and hours are relaxed. Citadel has a large spread and will pay a lot for people that interview very well but will often low ball if you don't have a great background. TC can be extremely high but expect longer hours. From what I've heard HRT pays extremely high but I don't have too many days points as they are smaller firm ~200. I heard their standard offer for new grads without signing was 275k/year. Culture there is apparently very collaborative and tech centric. Jane Street also has a great culture especially if you're more trader/math inclined as there's always a ton of opportunities for you to bet on things. My friend there really likes it and they definitely pay competitively. DE Shaw is different in that the trading groups are much more siloed though if you do well there you get paid extremely high. Overall all are top tier firms with the comp ranking as Citadel>DE Shaw>HRT>Jane Street=Two Sigma for top performers and DE Shaw=HRT>Jane Street=Two Sigma>Citadel for average performers.
FYI most people in the Two Sigma Blind lounge would leave for Google as of right now. Tldr Google has about the same pay with free food and better wlb
Great info. But are you talking about developer or quant?
Now that we have discussed the astronomical numbers :) , is there a chance of getting into these without a top school or FANG etc in your resume ? Citadel perhaps is more open about interviewing , but have got nothing from Two Sigma / JS yet. From HRT, just got a phone screen and was rejected even though it went quite well !
If you got a phone screen from HRT that's promising, I think. If your school is not top 30 I would say your chances are very very bad. FANG is nice, but I don't think people value it that much unless you have a directly applicable skill. Honestly, the pay at FANG is high enough when you have multiple offers to negotiate with that I would only try to move to finance if you really like it, or if the high risk high reward is appealing. Even at these top companies, a good chunk of people are not really making more than Google would offer (I'm thinking 300-400k for an L4-5) and are working harder for it with lower job security.
I have 11 years of experience - low level and distributed systems computing. Let’s see how things go in next 1-2 months
2s uses fixed problem set (15-20 problem total) which can be easily memorized. Some people may have gotten in by cheating, not good.