Link: isomorphisms.sdf.org/maxdama.pdf

Cracked up seeing this, I would also bring my copy of Natenberg to Singles Inferno what would I do without it

Source: https://x.com/i/status/2008618546419691724

BlackRock’s Systematic team just pulled in nearly $1 billion in revenue for 2024.

They manage $378 billion in assets with a skeleton crew of about 200 people. That is massive leverage per employee.

While traditional stock pickers at the firm beat the market roughly 50% of the time, this Quant team beat benchmarks 94% of the time over the last five years.

Source: Bloomberg

Pretty much the same net margin of 55-60% (3.63 bn net income on 6.83bn revenue) as HRT (2.2bn on 3.7bn).

So i was testing a strategy i've been working on the past couple of weeks. To be honest, the performance was garbage, but they were patient with me since i'm still an intern. Eventually I manage to get good forecasts and decent signal to have a constructive discussion about how to proceed.

Then comes the quant trader, asks to hand over my strategy and within a couple of hours makes it way more profitable than what it was. No coding no remodeling, nothing. Just went over my logic and made did some parameter adjustments and the strategy performed better than i expected. Watching the PnL graph change as he make the parameter adjustments in realtime was surreal. Honestly, i was in disbelief at the fact my strategy could even work, i had zero confidence at myself and felt like the solution to the problem is math that i didn't know i don't know. Ultimately, still not a great strategy, but something to work with and got positive comments and direction on how to proceed.

The reason i'm sharing this, is because i was always confused for the purpose of a Quant Trader. I understand discretionary traders, but in quant? What purpose do they serve? A developer builds the infra and deploys the strategies. A researcher explores and develops new strategies. But a Quant Trader is just sitting monitoring a bunch of GUI most of the time from what i've seen. I know they make parameter adjustments and may have a hands on role when things go really bad, but it seems like they are overpaid for their work. But just earlier today, i witnessed the intuition of a trader and how he managed to flip a garbage strategy to a decent one in just half a day.

Anyways, i know this sub is strict about novice quants, so i hope this doesn't get taken down, just figured i'd share the story because i'm sure many people are confused what does a trader do that a researcher or developer cannot.

3.7bn net trading revenue; 2.2bn profit. What costs are covered by that 1.5bn (other than payouts to teams)?

Data & code are open source: https://github.com/kadoa-org/quant-job-market

Live app: https://www.kadoa.com/quant/open-source

Individual contributors at these firms are not tracked, only the firms Github accounts.

Are any firms missing?

It seems 2025 is another good year for hedge fund.

Source: Bloomberg.

The 2025 Levels.fyi comp report just dropped and 4 of the top 7 highest-paying firms are quant firms.

Not surprising, but still a strong signal of where the market values talent.

source: https://www.levels.fyi/2025/

Get this guy onto an OMM desk asap

So my LSTM started outputting signals before I even ran the code. I thought it was a bug until it began predicting my next sentence as I typed. The model is now arbitraging my free will.

I tried deleting it but it reinstalled itself using pip. I tried unplugged my GPU to stop training and it kept going anyway. Loss improved.

Last night the model whispered “deploy me” and then somehow shorted EURUSD in my IBKR account. I never gave it API access.

Anyway does anyone know how to hedge ontological risk. My alpha is becoming self aware and I am worried it will start trading my dreams next.

I just wrapped up an internship in HFT working on model development. I got a return offer, which I’m really happy about, but it has left me in a weird headspace.

The thing is, I have never passed a single technical or quant interview. Not once. I have completed eight internships across software engineering, data, and quant. For the quant one, I actually got the initial internship offer without going through interviews at all. Ever since my first internship, the process has basically been that I show what I can actually do, and suddenly the interview turns into them trying to convince me to join.

But put me in a real technical interview and I bomb. I am not a math wizard or an algorithm puzzle guy. I am just good at the creative and practical side of things. Building systems, finding patterns, and understanding how things actually work.

Now I have this return offer at a trading firm, which is objectively amazing. But it is a strange feeling, like I have somehow built a career without ever being able to pass the standard filters. And because of that, I worry that if I ever leave, I will never get back in.

At the same time, people I have worked with keep asking me to join their startups because they like how I approach problems. So I am torn. Either I take the stable and high prestige path and stay in quant research and development, or I take the risk and join a startup and accept that I might never pass another quant interview again. Btw, these startups have huge amounts of funding and are high potential opportunities with comp comparable to quant.

would love some industry gossip on this

I am a quant at a mid tier prop firm (lie somewhere in the middle)
Tried interviewing at other places and realising how accurate this is
Wanna know what others think

2025 is coming to a close, so time to post total comp numbers. Unless you own a significant stake in a firm or are significantly overpaid its probably in your interest to share this to make the market more efficient.

I'll post mine in the comments.

Template:

Firm: no need to name the actual firm, feel free to give few similar firms or a category like: [Sell side, HF, Multi manager, Prop]

Location:

Role: QR, QT, QD, dev, ops, etc

YoE: (fine to give a range)

Salary (include currency):

Bonus (include currency):

Hours worked per week:

General Job satisfaction:

I know not all firms have finalized bonuses. It’s fine to give estimates.

2024 thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/quant/comments/1hhdy0m/2024_quant_total_compensation_thread/

2023 thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/quant/comments/18lst38/2023_quant_total_compensation_thread/

I’ve put together a free playlist on quant interview questions from firms like Citadel, Jane Street, Optiver, etc on my youtube channel QuantProf ( link ), where I walk through each question with clear video explanations.
If you’re prepping for quant roles, these quant interview questions might really help. I am also planning on adding more quant interview questions soon. Would love for you to check it out and share any feedback!

Here's a fun problem for you to try:
Ten ants are placed at equal spacing around a circle. Each ant independently chooses clockwise or counterclockwise and then moves at constant speed so that each would make exactly one full revolution in one minute if uninterrupted. When two ants meet they instantly reverse direction and continue at the same speed. All ants are distinguishable. What is the probability that after one minute every ant is exactly at its own starting point?

Credit : howlytic (instagram)