I have been on Blind for several months now and have been surprised about how polarizing some of the reviews of Citadel are. I work on the hedge fund side of the business as an SWE and have been here for several years. No one asked me to write this and it is just me being honest about why I work at Citadel. 1. We are a small company and if you want to do something, just f#$!*$% build it. If you have a vision, drive it forward. Understand the business problem, know your stakeholders, sell your idea, then execute. There are not layers of project managers, product owners, complex management structures preventing you from executing on what you think is right. 2. Everyone hustles. My entire life I have always worked harder than everyone else, it is just in my blood. I have a chip on my shoulder and I always feel like I am trying to prove anyone who has doubted me wrong. I want to work with other people that have that same drive every day. At Citadel everyone that is great has that drive. For people that are considering Citadel, if that doesn't resonate with you, then Citadel probably isn’t the best place. Yes that means I work 50hrs a week, but I wouldn’t want to work somewhere that isn’t the case. 3. Citadel is at the forefront of finance. Whether it is in equities, quant trading, structured products, natural gas, OTCs, deriviatves, etc we are arguably the best shops across asset classes. We manage an obscene amount of post-levered money and literally move markets. Being inside and understanding how we operate and attack financial opportunities is an amazing thing to be a part of. It also provides an invaluable understanding of how the best alternative asset manager is structured. For the rest of my career I can always say “well at Citadel we did it this way..” and that statement alone will add power to my voice if I stay in finance. 4. Autonomy. You aren’t given tasks but given problems. As long as you understand the problem, you have a lot of autonomy to decide how to solve it. This is in part a function of the company being small in head count relative to the number of markets we trade in which necessitates engineers operating independently. 5. The talent level in both technology and investment teams is incredible. We have some of the top quants, ai scientists, meteorologists, geologists, MDs (medical not managing), kube engineers, C++ engineers, react engineers, iOS engineers, GraphQL engineers, R and python core committers, designer of Redshift, gpu engineers, etc. all working at a company with just a couple thousand people. 6. We aren’t cheap, tell Citadel what you need and they will make it happen. 7. And lastly TC. I put it last on this list because for me it is last. However, I have been in the top 0.1% income bracket of my age group every year for the last several years. That is not because Citadel works me to the bone, but because I come to work every day obsessed on adding as much value as I can. In return Citadel recognizes and compensates me for that better than any other company in the world can or would. Period. #Citadel #CitadelSecurities
Weird flex!
It's not even a good flex. Citadel isn't at the forefront of finance, and it's not the best shop for any asset class. It *can* be a good firm to work for, but from my time in finance I've personally known people who hated it and didn't do much better than tech, despite later succeeding at other trading firms. It's a mixed bag. OP also sounds like a really annoying person to work with, like a classic finance bro. I don't want to work with someone who talks about having a chip on their shoulder or hustling or being out to prove other people wrong. Come on with that shit. It's just not a professional way to look at a job. You're there to collaborate and earn business results, not show off. Finally I find it telling that OP is impressed by Citadel moving markets, but that's kind of a mundane property of any trading firm Citadel's size. Hell, funds of 50 people total and less than a billion AUM can move markets. The things that impress OP about Citadel are basically features of any trading firm, and there are many smaller shops which are significantly better than Citadel - in track record and in comp potential for the average employee. They usually feature comparable or better WLB, as well.
Why so critical? He's being honest about who he is. For me, that really helped frame the company in terms of who'd enjoy working there. This thread is full of people who can't appreciate the helpful brutal honesty, calling it a flex, when in fact that's one of the primary ways Blind can be helpful!
Wierd flex, but ok.
Nice story now TC or GTFO
Lol, cool story bro... where da f is the TC?!?
They pay 150-200k for interns, prorated to your length of internship. Doesn't include housing, which is probably an extra 50k considering how good it is.
Who are you trying to convince OP? 🤔
Lirik the streamer? 💀
I talked to candidates recently and you would be surprised how influential some of the reviews are on Blind. I just wanted to provide a counter story.
Call us when you get into Rentech
More like #CitadelInsecurities am I right?
This is actually pretty good. Mainly there aren’t many positive stories on Blind about Citadel so I wanted to add one.
That's because Blind is where people either go to: A) Brag about their life B) Talk shit about their job Same thing can be said about AMZN, most people on here shit talk it. But 7 years here and I know many people who are happy. I have always been on teams with great WLB and I make good money. I work 40 hours a week, no oncall, and have time for hobbies.
Weird flex but Who cares About #3? I want to work where there are interesting challenges and a lot of money and coworkers who cares if the company is at the forefront of porn production. Citadel is a great place no doubt but it is more like Amazon of Finance not the Google there are plenty of companies which have superior TC and talent and dont require you to work 50 hrs
I think at Citadel (or anywhere in asset management) you have to care about the end product to be successful. If you really have no interest in finance at all, it might not be the best industry to build a career.
Amazon of finance is generous, Citadel is a typical Chicago company desperately pretending it can be in the leagues of NY. I rejected an interview request when they asked for my undergrad GPA...I bet they drug test too
What's funny is that people from Amazon, Ansys, nutanix, Samsung etc replying negatively to what op had to say. You guys do realize that you don't have any credentials or standing when it comes to criticizing op since he makes multiples of your TC doing pretty much the same job that you guys are doing lol! He is laughing all the way to bank while you guys are being butt hurt about not even being in the same league as the op. All of you are effing plebs as compared to the real ballers working in hedge funds!
What if thise people used to work at Amazon, nutanix and now work at Google/Fb
What are the odds that these guys are working in fb/g? Also even if they were, they still will be making less tc that op. Citadel, Jane street etc easily pay more than even top of the band g/fb offers at any level.
Cool story bro. What matters is NW and what you do with it. The rest is meh....
All good but I got rejected 😤
Trust me it’s all good, our hiring process is far from perfect and there are a lot of great people that we miss out on.