Graduates are earning $250k+ salaries in algorithmic trading

For elite STEM graduates, there's not much better you can do than landing a job at an electronic trading firm. They're some of the highest paying companies in the world, especially for graduates, but how much can you actually earn in an entry-level graduate job?

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In New York, these firms are legally mandated to provide a salary. We've listed graduate opportunities in the city at six top firms below, ranked from the highest salary to the lowest.

What you'll first notice is, at the upper end, there isn't too much distinguishing them. While Jane Street and Citadel Securities pay some of their graduates up to $300k each, the majority of graduate opportunities in the space cap graduate salaries at $250k. This is because the real money you'll earn at a trading firm comes from the bonuses... and these can vary wildly.

Jane Street, for example, is known to pay bonuses according to firm-wide profits, rather than individual performance. Citadel Securities is the opposite. Renaissance Technologies which doesn't rank well for its salaries, allows its employees to buy into its legendary and lucrative Medallion Fund.

These benefits aren't always reserved for the traders. According to Levels.fyi, Jane Street's graduate software engineers were the best paid in the world in 2023, earning $325k on average at all levels.

How to get a graduate job in algorithmic trading

With many of the firms, candidate requirements are very vague. Renaissance requires a degree and a "strong academic background" for most roles. Jane Street says it's "more interested in how you think and learn than what you currently know." Tower research provides more details of what it wants, and presumably what the other firms would prefer as well, in its job listing. It prefers prior industry experience (usually an internship at one of the top firms), experience in machine learning and data analysis, experience as a teaching assistant, and participation in mathematics Olympiads.

For tech focused roles, the best options to differentiate yourself are personal coding projects and contributions to open-source software. Firms like Citadel Securities and IMC also run algorithm competitions for students, some of which have a track record of leading to a graduate opportunity at a top firm.

The application process can also differ from firm to firm. Jane Street is known for its infamous riddles and logic puzzles, often involving gambling and card games. Renaissance asks its applicants to give a university-style research talk, then solve math and physics problems on a blackboard. 

The most important thing, as you might expect, is attending the right school. Jane Street, for example, is thought to exclusively recruit from a shortlist of top universities like Princeton, Oxford and the National University of Singapore. Firms will often attend campus events at these top universities, where a significant amount of graduate hiring will be done. If you're at a target school, don't miss them!

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