2023 Q4 Market Report
2023 was one note, generally a waiting game on interest rates and major world events with firms tightening budgets and running leaner than they have since the Covid boom. There’s no need to repeat myself discussing the state of the market for the past few months. As for 2024, my guess is that the job market will pick up as rates come down. I’m hopeful that many people who had a tough time in 2023 will fare better market in 2024.
Layoffs
Buyside Hustle has a comprehensive list of bank layoffs in 2023. While the layoffs are not large, they do represent an about-face from an aggressive hiring stance over the past couple of years. Our IB clients were frozen on hiring for the entire year, something we haven’t seen since the Credit Crisis.
Hedge fund hiring was another matter. A number of firms continued to hire aggressively spurred by continued good performance. Other firms that haven’t fared as well went the other direction. Schonfeld recently had a large layoff affecting 15% of their workforce of ~1000. Layoffs were heavily concentrated in technology with likely 30% or more of the technology staff let go. Some teams that recruited heavily over the past couple of years were gutted. Another prominent hedge fund recently let go of a few technology employees, taking the more direct approach of layoffs rather than their usual process of managing people out.
Best Hedge Funds to Work for…
You can download the eFinancialCareers “Idea Employers” report here. It’s odd to me that this report is based on respondents who are generally not working for these firms, so the results are very much perception based.
Hedge Funds:
Citadel
Bridgewater Associates
Renaissance Technologies
Millennium Management
D.E. Shaw & Co.
AQR Capital Management
Balyasny Asset Management
Pont72 Asset Management
Elliott Management
Brevan Howard
Banks:
JP Morgan
Goldman Sachs
HSBC
Barclays
BlackRock
Citigroup
Allianz
Deutsche Bank
Morgan Stanley
UBS Group
Yeah, these are weird lists. Ted Pick has work to do to move Morgan Stanley back up the list (they were #4 5 years ago). The banks list is clearly skewed by European respondents.
For comparison, Yahoo Finance published a “15 Best Hedge Funds to Work For” list in March 2023, not caring about the dangling preposition nor what it is actually like to work for these firms, as the list is performance based:
Citadel
D.E. Shaw
Millennium Management
Bridgewater
Brevan Howard
Elliot Investment Management
Point72 Asset Management
Caxton Associates
Appaloosa Management
Farallon Capital Management
Soros Fund Management
Viking Global Investors
Baupost Group
Lone Pine Capital
Sculptor Capital Management
Note that these lists have little correlation with best career options for the software engineers, quantitative developers, and quantitative researchers who are our main audience. But everyone loves a list.
Training
Firms are introducing more intensive training programs in an effort to attract top talent. As mentioned last quarter, Millennium is offering a technology training program to help build their Miami location. And who wouldn’t want to participate in Citadel Securities’ intensive program featuring participation with leaders of the firm? Citadel also offers the NXT program for technology grads. And Point72 offers Point72 Academy to groom future analysts.
Current Priorities
I expect this list to change dramatically over the next 6 weeks!
SE: Software Engineer
QD: Quantitative Developer
QR: Quantitative Researcher
HF: Hedge Fund
Buy Side
Most in Demand: C++, Python, QD, Prior industry experience, especially Buy-side experience
· Systematic Trader – track record required
· Data Scientist – PhD with w/ research accomplishments
· Lead C# Engineer - boutique HF – lead new business efforts
· Lead Python SE – Miami
· Python /SE - Miami
· Trade Support Engineer – systematic HF
· Support Lead Research Technology – systematic HF
· AWS Engineering and Support – systematic HF
· Java or Python SE – strategic technology group – leading HF
· Java SE – authentication/entitlements – leading HF
· Lead Data Platform SE – Python – leading HF
· Python/C++ QD Equity Models Engineer – leading HF
· Python QD – Equity Hedging – leading HF
· QD portfolio optimization and backtesting – leading HF
· C++ SE – Trading Systems – systematic HF
· C++ SE – high frequency/low latency – systematic HF
· Junior C++ SE – low latency – leading HF
· C++ QD – 4-8 years – systematic HF
· Python QD – 4-8 years – systematic HF
· Python/C++ QD - 4-8 years – systematic HF
· QR medium frequency, ML, liquid futures – systematic HF
· Algo C++ QD – leading HF
· Trading Desk data engineer – Typescript/React/Node.js (not UI) – San Francisco
Sell Side
Most in Demand: Nothing
FinTech
· Senior Scala engineer - Fixed Income, eTrading - Remote