The Quant List

Live index

The best quant firms, ranked.

Quant trading firms now post what they pay, and the numbers are unlike anything else in finance or tech. This is the living index of the firms worth your application: posted base for traders, researchers and developers, which internships and graduate listings are open, and when they opened. Every number was read from a firm’s own listing.

Firms ranked

Hiring now

Summer 2027 internships open

$300k

Top posted new-grad base

Sources: each firm’s own job board and posted salary ranges. Company pages also show self-reported pay from Levels.fyi, labelled as such and not scored. Last verified November 11, 2026. How we rank →

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Tier 1The firms that set the market — where every tier list starts, and the pay everyone else is measured against

Jane Street is a proprietary trading firm and one of the largest market makers in ETFs, options and bonds. It hires three core tracks — quantitative trader, quantitative researcher and software engineer — and posts the same $300,000 base on all three, for new graduates and experienced hires alike. Most of its code is written in OCaml, and its interviews lean on probability, betting games and reasoning out loud rather than finance knowledge.

Base salary

$300k

Locations

New York

Work setup

In office in New York; none of the trading, research or engineering listings is remote

Who they hire

Undergraduates through PhDs from any quantitative field; the listings ask for no finance background. Summer internships and new-grad roles run in all three tracks.

Applications

New-grad and summer 2027 internship listings are live for all three tracks; the current Quantitative Trader listing was posted July 6, 2026

Worth knowing: Interns are posted at the same $300,000 annualized base as full-time hires, and experienced traders, researchers and engineers are posted at the same $300,000 as new graduates: the base is flat and the bonus does the differentiating.

Open: new-grad and summer 2027 internship listings for Quantitative Trader, Quantitative Researcher and Software Engineer in New York, plus experienced listings in all three tracks, as of Nov 11, 2026

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Jane Street Quant page →

Hudson River Trading is an automated trading firm that folds quant research and trading into one role, the Algorithm Developer, alongside a large software engineering org working in C++ and Python. Both 2027 graduate listings — Algorithm Developer and Software Engineer — post a $300,000 US base, and the interview process is coding-heavy for both tracks.

Base salary

$300k

Locations

New York · Chicago · Austin

Work setup

In office; the US graduate listings name New York, with software roles also in Chicago and Austin

Who they hire

Bachelor’s through PhD in computer science, math, physics or a similar field. The Algorithm Developer listings ask for programming and statistics; the listings say knowledge of trading or financial markets is not required.

Applications

2027 graduate and summer 2027 internship listings were posted July 13, 2026 and are still live

Worth knowing: HRT has no separate trader title. The Algorithm Developer role covers research and trading, so a candidate who would apply to “quant trader” and “quant researcher” elsewhere applies to one listing here.

Open: Algorithm Developer and Software Engineer listings for 2027 graduates, summer 2027 internships for both tracks, and more than 30 experienced engineering reqs in the US, as of Nov 11, 2026

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Hudson River Trading Quant page →

Citadel is a multi-strategy hedge fund headquartered in Miami, with its largest quant hiring in New York. It is a separate firm from Citadel Securities, the market maker, though the two interview campus candidates together: their interview pages say you talk with “two firms at once”. Campus hiring runs through four listings — Quantitative Research Analyst, Quantitative Trader in Equity Quantitative Research, Software Engineer and PhD-level researcher roles — and every one posts the same range. Its Global Quantitative Strategies business posts experienced researcher bands of $300,000–$350,000.

Base salary

$235k–$300k

Locations

New York · Miami · Greenwich

Work setup

In office; campus listings name New York, Miami, Greenwich and Houston

Who they hire

Undergraduate through PhD and postdoc, in separate university-graduate and PhD-graduate listings.

Applications

University-graduate and internship listings are live for research, trading and software; the internship postings describe a June-to-August program without naming the year

Worth knowing: Citadel’s experienced Global Quantitative Strategies researcher listings post $300,000–$350,000, the only experienced band on this list that starts where the top new-grad figures end.

Open: university-graduate listings for Quantitative Research Analyst, Quantitative Trader (Equity Quantitative Research) and Software Engineer, PhD-graduate researcher and research-engineer listings, internships in all three tracks, and experienced research and engineering reqs, as of Nov 11, 2026. No experienced quantitative trader listing is live in the US

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Citadel Quant page →

Citadel Securities is a market maker in equities, options and fixed income, headquartered in Miami with most quant roles in New York. It shares a founder with Citadel, the hedge fund, and is a separate firm with its own listings, though the two interview campus candidates together. It hires quantitative traders, quantitative researchers and software engineers. Its trader internship is “a single application for our summer trading and quantitative research program”, and its experienced listings post up to $350,000.

Base salary

$235k–$300k

Locations

New York · Miami

Work setup

In office in New York or Miami

Who they hire

Undergraduates for trading and software engineering. The trader internship is titled Trading and Research, asks for a bachelor’s degree and covers the summer quantitative research program; the separate Quantitative Researcher listings are for PhDs.

Applications

The bachelor’s and master’s Quantitative Research Analyst graduate and internship listings came down on Aug 11, 2026; trader, software and PhD research listings are still live

Worth knowing: Citadel Securities’ undergraduate research listing closed on Aug 11, 2026, about a month after most firms opened theirs. It is the clearest example on this list of how early the cycle ends.

Open: university-graduate listings for Quantitative Trader and Software Engineer, PhD-graduate researcher and research-engineer listings, internships for traders, engineers and PhD researchers, and experienced trading, research and engineering reqs, as of Nov 11, 2026. The undergraduate Quantitative Research Analyst listings closed in August

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Citadel Securities Quant page →

Tier 2The established shops — large, well-run firms with real training, campus programs and posted pay to match

The D. E. Shaw group is a New York investment and technology firm, and one of the first to trade systematically. Its quant hiring runs through two generalist listings, Quantitative Analyst and Software Developer, which take candidates at every level from new graduate up, plus a Proprietary Trading internship. The postings state the bonus is guaranteed in the first year.

Base salary

$275k–$300k

Locations

New York

Work setup

In office in New York

Who they hire

Undergraduate through PhD in math, statistics, physics, engineering, computer science and similar fields. The listings welcome candidates at all experience levels and do not require finance.

Applications

Summer 2027 internships for Quantitative Analyst, Software Developer (each with a PhD track) and Proprietary Trading are live

Worth knowing: The intern package is itemised on the posting: $25,000 a month, a $25,000 sign-on bonus, housing or a $10,000 allowance, a $3,300 stipend for self-study materials and a $4,000 personal-technology stipend.

Open: the standing Quantitative Analyst and Software Developer listings, a Machine Learning Researcher listing at $275,000–$350,000, and five summer 2027 internships in New York, as of Nov 11, 2026

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full D. E. Shaw Quant page →

Interviewing at a quant firm?Aced’s quant interview guide covers the probability, market-making and mental-math rounds, with real questions from these firms.

Start prepping →

Two Sigma is a systematic investment manager in New York that runs on two tracks: quantitative research and software engineering. It has no quantitative trader role at any level. Its campus listings state one number rather than a range, and a single Quantitative Researcher listing covers bachelor’s through doctorate.

Base salary

$225k–$300k

Locations

New York · Houston

Work setup

Hybrid in New York, per the firm’s listings

Who they hire

Bachelor’s through doctorate on one Quantitative Researcher campus listing; software engineering has its own campus and internship listings.

Applications

Campus full-time and summer 2027 internship listings are live for both tracks; the firm’s site shows no posting dates

Worth knowing: Two Sigma pays its campus researchers $75,000 more in base than its campus engineers, $300,000 against $225,000, the widest posted gap between tracks on this list.

Open: campus full-time listings for Quantitative Researcher, AI Research Scientist, Data Scientist and Software Engineering, summer 2027 internships for researchers and engineers, and experienced research and engineering reqs across the firm, as of Nov 11, 2026

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Two Sigma Quant page →

Jump Trading is a Chicago-headquartered proprietary trading firm built around small, independent trading teams. Its campus program hires quantitative traders, quantitative researchers and software engineers through internships, plus AI research engineers for its deep-learning effort, and it sponsors work visas for full-time campus roles.

Base salary

$200k–$300k

Locations

Chicago · New York

Work setup

In office in Chicago or New York

Who they hire

Undergraduate through PhD and postdoc. The internship listings say no finance or economics background is required, and international students are encouraged to apply.

Applications

Campus internship listings for summer 2027 were posted July 8, 2026; the full-time PhD researcher listing followed on Sept 22, 2026

Worth knowing: Jump’s only campus trading listing is the internship. There is no standalone new-grad Quantitative Trader req, so the summer is the way in.

Open: summer 2027 internships for Quantitative Trader, Quantitative Researcher (UG/MS and PhD) and Software Engineer, full-time campus listings for PhD researchers, AI research engineers and systems engineers, and experienced software and research reqs, as of Nov 11, 2026. No full-time campus Quantitative Trader listing is live

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Jump Trading Quant page →

Susquehanna International Group is a privately held trading firm headquartered in Bala Cynwyd, outside Philadelphia, and one of the largest options market makers. It is known for training traders from scratch with a long education program built on decision science and poker. Its 2027 master’s and PhD listings for quantitative researchers and quantitative systematic traders post a $300,000 base in New York.

Base salary

$300k

Locations

Philadelphia area · New York

Work setup

In office at the Bala Cynwyd headquarters or in New York

Who they hire

Undergraduate through PhD. Research and systematic-trading roles are split into master’s and PhD listings; the trading track has historically hired undergraduates into an assistant-trader program.

Applications

Master’s and PhD listings for 2027 and their summer 2027 internships are live; the US undergraduate Quantitative Trader graduate and internship listings for 2027 are no longer on the board

Worth knowing: SIG posts pay only where the law requires it. The same 2027 role appears twice on its board: at $300,000 in New York and with no figure in Bala Cynwyd.

Open in the US: Quantitative Researcher and Quantitative Systematic Trader listings for 2027 master’s and PhD graduates, their summer 2027 internships, and new-grad Quantitative Strategy Developer and Trading System Engineer listings in Bala Cynwyd, as of Nov 11, 2026. The undergraduate Quantitative Trader listings currently live are for Dublin and London only

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Susquehanna (SIG) Quant page →

IMC is a global market maker founded in Amsterdam, with its US headquarters in Chicago and a growing New York office. Traders, researchers and engineers work on the same desks, and the graduate program posts a single base figure per role. Its New York deep-learning research roles post the highest campus figure at the firm.

Base salary

$200k–$300k

Locations

Chicago · New York

Work setup

In office in Chicago or New York

Who they hire

Bachelor’s through PhD. Graduate researcher listings are split by degree (BS/MS and PhD). The software internship listing states that immigration sponsorship is not offered for that role.

Applications

Graduate and summer 2027 internship listings were posted July 1, 2026; the Early Career software listing followed on Sept 30, 2026

Worth knowing: IMC is one of the few firms that posts a single number rather than a range on campus roles: $250,000 for a graduate researcher, $200,000 for a graduate engineer.

Open: graduate Quantitative Researcher and Deep Learning Researcher listings, Software Engineer, Early Career, summer 2027 internships in trading, research and software, and 21 experienced engineering reqs in the US, as of Nov 11, 2026. No graduate Quantitative Trader listing is live; the trading internship is

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full IMC Trading Quant page →

Point72 is a multistrategy hedge fund headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. Cubist Systematic Strategies is its computer-driven trading business, and most of the firm’s quant hiring runs through it: entry-level and experienced quant researchers and developers, summer internships, and a rotational Cubist Quant Academy for STEM graduates.

Base salary

$150k–$300k

Locations

New York · Chicago

Work setup

New York, Chicago, Stamford and Seattle; the listings do not say whether roles are hybrid

Who they hire

Entry-level researcher listings take bachelor’s through PhD; most research internships ask for master’s or PhD students, and Cubist’s KEPL internship for PhD candidates. Developer internships take undergraduates.

Applications

Summer 2027 research and developer internship listings are live, several updated in the first two weeks of November 2026

Worth knowing: Cubist’s PhD research internship for summer 2027 posts an annual base of $240,000–$300,000, and its own page counts more than 600 Cubist staff as of July 2026.

Open: Entry-Level Quantitative Researcher and early-career Quantitative Developer listings at Cubist, summer 2027 research, machine learning and developer internships, and experienced research and developer reqs, as of Nov 12, 2026. No US trader internship is posted

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Point72 / Cubist Quant page →

Optiver is a global options market maker founded in Amsterdam, with US offices in Chicago, Austin and New York. Its graduate program is best known for its assessments, including a timed mental-arithmetic test, and for a structured training period for new traders. Every US listing that posts pay shows the same $200,000 base, with a discretionary bonus on top.

Base salary

$200k

Locations

Chicago · Austin · New York

Work setup

In office in Chicago, Austin or New York

Who they hire

Bachelor’s through PhD. The graduate researcher listing is PhD-only; trading and software graduate listings open on their own schedule and are not on the board now.

Applications

Graduate researcher and FPGA listings for a 2027 start were posted in July 2026; the New York researcher listing on Sept 23, 2026

Worth knowing: Optiver’s posted US base is identical for a PhD graduate researcher and an experienced systematic options trader: $200,000. The spread between people is entirely in the bonus.

Open: Graduate Quantitative Researcher, PhD (2027 Start) in Chicago, New York and Austin, Graduate FPGA Engineer, and experienced trading, research and software reqs, as of Nov 11, 2026. No graduate or intern Quantitative Trader or Software Engineer listing is live in the US; the only internship posted is FPGA Engineer

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Optiver Quant page →

Five Rings is a proprietary trading firm in New York with a small headcount and a campus program that pays like the largest firms. It hires quantitative traders, software developers and PhD researchers, and its interview process is known for games and probability rather than finance.

Base salary

$300k

Locations

New York

Work setup

In office in New York

Who they hire

Undergraduate through PhD. Trading listings ask for no finance background; the developer listing asks for Python and prefers C or C++ and Linux.

Applications

Campus full-time and summer 2027 internship listings were posted July 14, 2026 and are still live

Worth knowing: With 19 postings in total, Five Rings is the smallest firm on this list to post a $300,000 campus base.

Open: Campus Full Time 2027 listings for Quantitative Trader and Software Developer, summer 2027 internships for Quantitative Trader, Software Developer and Quantitative Researcher (PhD), and an experienced Quantitative Researcher req, as of Nov 11, 2026

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Five Rings Quant page →

DRW is a Chicago-headquartered trading firm that spans market making, latency-sensitive strategies, options, and crypto through its Cumberland business. It hires researchers and traders desk by desk, which is why its board carries many separate quantitative researcher reqs rather than one generalist listing.

Base salary

$225k–$300k

Locations

Chicago · New York

Work setup

In office, mostly in Chicago, with research roles also in New York

Who they hire

Bachelor’s through PhD in math, statistics, physics, engineering or computer science. Desk-specific researcher reqs ask for experience; the July campus-cycle listings do not.

Applications

Campus-cycle Quantitative Researcher, Software Developer and internship listings were posted July 13, 2026

Worth knowing: DRW had a Quantitative Researcher – Prediction Markets req open on Nov 11, 2026 at $200,000–$300,000, one of several prediction-market roles that appeared across this list in 2026.

Open: Quantitative Researcher and Software Developer listings from the July 2026 campus cycle, internships in trading, research and software, nine other researcher reqs and more than 50 engineering reqs in the US, as of Nov 11, 2026

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full DRW Quant page →

Millennium is a multi-manager hedge fund founded in 1989, with principal offices in New York and London. Campus hiring runs through its 2027 internship program, which the firm says it uses to hire its analyst class, and its Quantitative Strategies team has launched an 18 to 24 month program for early-career quants.

Base salary

$160k–$250k

Locations

New York · Miami · Austin

Work setup

In office; the listings are tagged onsite

Who they hire

Research internships are for master’s students and developer internships for bachelor’s or master’s students graduating between December 2027 and July 2028, with a 3.5 GPA. The Quant Analyst Program takes graduates with an advanced bachelor’s, master’s or PhD.

Applications

Summer 2027 internship listings were created between July 27 and August 10, 2026 and are reviewed on a rolling basis

Worth knowing: Millennium’s own listings describe a firm of more than 7,100 people and 370 investment teams, and its students page limits each candidate to two applications.

Open: summer 2027 quantitative researcher internships in New York, Miami and Austin, a quantitative developer internship in New York, the early-career Quant Analyst Program and experienced quant research and developer reqs in New York, as of Nov 12, 2026. No US trader listing is posted

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Millennium Quant page →

Tier 3The specialists — smaller or more focused firms, and often the more reachable way in

Renaissance Technologies is a quantitative investment manager founded in 1982 and headquartered in East Setauket, on Long Island, with a second office in New York City. It hires research scientists with advanced degrees and programmers through its own jobs page, and runs no posted internship or campus program.

Base salary

$129k–$224k

Locations

East Setauket · New York

Work setup

In office in East Setauket or New York

Who they hire

Research Scientist asks for an advanced degree and a record of first-class research. Programming roles ask for a degree in a quantitative field and an outstanding academic record. No internship or campus listing is posted.

Applications

Listings carry no posting dates, and no internship or campus listing is posted

Worth knowing: Renaissance posts no trader role at all: its one trading listing is for a Real-Time Trading Programmer.

Open: Research Scientist, Research Engineer and four programming roles, in East Setauket and New York, as of Nov 12, 2026. No internship, campus or trader listing is posted

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Renaissance Technologies Quant page →

Tower Research Capital is a New York high-frequency trading firm organised as a set of independent trading teams on shared infrastructure. Its campus listing combines trading and research into one Quantitative Trader/Researcher role, with separate quantitative developer internships.

Base salary

$150k–$250k

Locations

New York · Chicago

Work setup

In office in New York or Chicago

Who they hire

Bachelor’s through PhD; the campus listing asks for programming in Python or C++ and statistical modelling. A separate PhD trading internship is posted.

Applications

The 2027 full-time and summer 2027 internship listings were posted July 5, 2026

Worth knowing: Tower posts intern pay as a weekly range, $3,500–$5,700, rather than the annualized figure most firms on this list use.

Open: Quantitative Trader/Researcher – 2027, summer 2027 internships for trader/researcher (including a PhD track) and quantitative developer, and experienced research and software reqs, as of Nov 11, 2026

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Tower Research Capital Quant page →

Akuna Capital is an options market-making firm headquartered in Chicago. It runs junior full-time listings for traders, quantitative researchers and quantitative developers alongside internships, and it is one of the more accessible entry points on this list for candidates without a top-firm internship.

Base salary

From $145k

Locations

Chicago

Work setup

In office in Chicago

Who they hire

Bachelor’s and up. The junior listings are aimed at new graduates and candidates with a year or two of experience.

Applications

Junior full-time and summer 2027 internship listings were posted July 13, 2026

Worth knowing: Akuna is replacing its traditional trading summer internship in 2027 with “Sneak Peek Weeks”: one-week micro-internships run several times through the year, which it says will let it host more trading interns.

Open: Junior Trader, Junior Quantitative Researcher and Junior Quantitative Developer & Strategist, summer 2027 internships in quantitative research and platform engineering, expressions of interest for the 2027 Trading Sneak Peek Weeks, and experienced options trading and C++ reqs, as of Nov 11, 2026

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Akuna Capital Quant page →

Virtu Financial is an electronic market maker and execution-services firm headquartered in New York, and the only company on this list listed on a stock exchange. Its early-career hiring runs through internships in quantitative research (PhD), software engineering and hardware, with a HackerRank test as the first step.

Base salary

$175k–$200k

Locations

New York · Austin

Work setup

In office in New York or Austin

Who they hire

The research track is PhD-only. Software internships take undergraduate and master’s students.

Applications

Summer 2027 internship listings were posted between July 21 and July 29, 2026

Worth knowing: Virtu’s research listing says the first step is an online programming test sent by HackerRank, one of the few postings on this list to name its screening tool.

Open: summer 2027 internships in quantitative research (PhD), software engineering, frontend and FPGA hardware, the standing Quantitative Researcher (PhD) listing, and prediction-market and weekend trader reqs in Austin, as of Nov 11, 2026. No new-grad trader listing is live

Prep with Aced View open roles

Salary band, hiring status & score breakdown — see the full Virtu Financial Quant page →

The comp landscape

Posted base at each firm, US market, taken from its new-grad listings or, where a firm has none, from its standing quant listings. A short marker means the firm posts one figure rather than a range, or only a minimum where the figure reads “From”. Bonuses come on top and are not posted, so these are floors, not totals. Full breakdown in the Quant salary guide.

Jane Street

$300k

Hudson River Trading

$300k

Citadel

$235k–$300k

Citadel Securities

$235k–$300k

D. E. Shaw

$275k–$300k

Two Sigma

$225k–$300k

Jump Trading

$200k–$300k

Susquehanna (SIG)

$300k

IMC Trading

$200k–$300k

Point72 / Cubist

$150k–$300k

Five Rings

$300k

DRW

$225k–$300k

Millennium

$160k–$250k

Tower Research Capital

$150k–$250k

Renaissance Technologies

$129k–$224k

Optiver

$200k

Virtu Financial

$175k–$200k

Akuna Capital

From $145k

What does a quant do?

A quant uses mathematics, statistics and code to trade financial markets. The firms on this list are proprietary trading firms and market makers, which trade their own capital and quote prices in options, ETFs, futures and bonds, and quantitative hedge funds, which run systematic strategies for investors. Both hire the same three profiles.

Quant traders make decisions in live markets and manage risk. Quant researchers build the models and signals behind the strategies. Quant developers, usually titled software engineers, build the systems everything runs on. Interviews differ by track: probability, mental math and market-making games for traders; statistics, modelling and research depth for researchers; C++ or Python, systems and algorithms for developers.

Preparing for the interviews? Start with our guides to the quant trader interview, quant researcher interview, and quant developer interview.

How we rank

Every program gets an Index score out of 100, built from four weighted dimensions. Scores are editorial judgments grounded in the data below — not paid placements.

30%

Compensation

Posted base pay on new-grad and internship listings, by track, plus posted bands on experienced reqs. Bonuses are not posted anywhere, so they are not scored.

25%

Program maturity

How established the pipeline is: dedicated internship and new-grad listings in each track, a real training program, and how many seats the firm fills each year.

25%

Career capital

What the name does for the rest of your career: the firm’s standing among traders and researchers, the problems you get to work on, and where people go next.

20%

Momentum

Open US reqs across trading, research and engineering, new desks and offices, and whether the campus cycle is open, narrowing or already closed.

We also track PDT Partners, XTX Markets, Radix Trading, Squarepoint, WorldQuant, AQR, Chicago Trading Company, Flow Traders and Old Mission, currently outside the ranking and queued for the next data pass. XTX Markets had no open US listings on Nov 12, 2026. Every firm ranked here has a posted US base figure on a live quant listing. Total compensation is not shown for any firm: bonuses are discretionary, no firm posts them, and self-reported samples for these roles are too thin to quote as a range.

Compensation data comes from posted salary ranges (required in several US states), levels.fyi, and public offer reports; figures are US-market and vary by level and location. Hiring status reflects each company’s careers page as of November 11, 2026. Spotted something outdated? Email [email protected].

Frequently asked questions

Going by what firms post, a new-graduate quant’s base runs from a $145,000 floor at Akuna to $300,000 at Jane Street, Hudson River Trading, Susquehanna (SIG) and Five Rings, which all post that single figure, as Two Sigma does for campus researchers. Citadel and Citadel Securities post a $235,000–$300,000 range, D. E. Shaw $275,000 ($300,000 for PhDs), IMC $250,000 for graduate researchers and Optiver a flat $200,000. Point72’s Cubist posts $150,000–$200,000 for entry-level researchers and $200,000–$300,000 for early-career developers, and Millennium $160,000–$250,000 for its early-career Quant Analyst Program. Those are base salaries only. Every one of these listings adds a discretionary bonus that no firm puts a number on, so posted base is the floor of first-year pay, not the total.

This list ranks 18 firms on posted pay, the strength of the campus program, career capital and hiring momentum. The top tier is Jane Street, Hudson River Trading, Citadel and Citadel Securities. The second tier is D. E. Shaw, Two Sigma, Jump Trading, Susquehanna (SIG), IMC Trading, Point72 / Cubist, Optiver, Five Rings, DRW and Millennium, and the third is Renaissance Technologies, Tower Research Capital, Akuna Capital and Virtu Financial. Any tier list is partly taste; ours shows the four scores behind each rank so you can weigh them differently.

A quant trader makes decisions in live markets: pricing, managing risk and adjusting strategies as conditions change. A quant researcher builds the models and signals those strategies run on, working mostly with data and statistics. A quant developer, usually titled software engineer, builds the trading systems, research platforms and low-latency infrastructure. The lines move by firm. Hudson River Trading folds trading and research into one Algorithm Developer role, Tower Research posts a combined Quantitative Trader/Researcher listing, D. E. Shaw hires generalist Quantitative Analysts, and Two Sigma has no trader title at all.

18 of the 18 firms had live US quant listings on our last check, and 16 had summer 2027 internships open. Internship listings are open at Jane Street, Hudson River Trading, Citadel, Citadel Securities, D. E. Shaw, Two Sigma, Jump Trading, Susquehanna (SIG), IMC Trading, Point72 / Cubist, Five Rings, DRW, Millennium, Tower Research Capital, Akuna Capital and Virtu Financial. Hiring status on every firm page is dated, because campus listings open and close within weeks.

Earlier than most students expect: about a year ahead. For summer 2027, the listings on these firms’ boards were posted in July 2026: IMC on July 1, Tower Research on July 5, Jump Trading on July 8, Hudson River Trading, DRW and Akuna on July 13, Five Rings on July 14, Virtu between July 21 and 29 and Millennium between July 27 and August 10. They close early too: Citadel Securities took down its undergraduate research listings on August 11, and Susquehanna’s US undergraduate trading listings were gone by November. If you want a summer 2028 seat, expect listings in July 2027.

No. Traders and software engineers are hired mostly from bachelor’s and master’s programs, and several firms split their research listings by degree and pay them the same: IMC posts $250,000 for both its BS/MS and PhD graduate researcher listings, and Two Sigma’s single campus researcher listing covers bachelor’s through doctorate at $300,000. A PhD matters most for research at specific firms. Optiver’s graduate researcher listing, Virtu’s research track and Citadel Securities’ live research listings are PhD-only, D. E. Shaw pays PhDs $300,000 against $275,000, and Susquehanna runs separate master’s and PhD listings. Cubist’s summer research internship at Point72 is for PhD candidates, and Renaissance’s Research Scientist listing asks for an advanced degree.

The listings mostly say no. Jump Trading’s internship postings state that no finance or economics study or work experience is required, Hudson River Trading says knowledge of trading or financial markets is not required, and D. E. Shaw says it welcomes candidates from any technical or quantitative program. What they screen for is probability, statistics, programming and how you reason under uncertainty.

Land the offer, not just the interview.

Practice real quant interview questions on probability, expected value and market making, and see how each firm’s process works before you sit it.

Read the quant interview guide Practice interview questions

The best quant firms, ranked.

The comp landscape

What does a quant do?

How we rank

Browse quant jobs

Salary & hiring by company

More job lists

Frequently asked questions

Land the offer, not just the interview.

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