Graduate base salary
$300,000
Algorithm developers and software engineers, US
First-year total pay
ReportedAbout $467,000
Average that entry-level engineers report
Intern pay, New York
$5,800 a week
Algorithm development, Summer 2027
Typical base, US
$223,000 to $250,000
Middle half of filed pay, mostly developers
London pay per employee
£1.47m
2025, a small entity of 21 staff
New York quant developer, first year
EstimateAbout $325,000 to $510,000
Base plus bonus at every firm, for comparison
Hudson River Trading (HRT) is an automated trading firm and liquidity provider. Its founding partners, graduates of Harvard and MIT in computer science and mathematics, started it in 2002. It describes itself as built by coders and led by coders, and now has 14 offices in six countries.
HRT publishes pay more openly than most firms, including intern pay outside the US. Its graduates start on a flat $300,000 base in the US, and most of what changes after that is the bonus.
How much does HRT pay graduates?
HRT pays its 2027 graduates a base of $300,000 in the US, both as algorithm developers (its name for quant researchers and traders) and as software engineers. The ads add a sign-on bonus and a discretionary performance bonus, without amounts.
That base sits at the top of what HRT advertises for experience. An experienced quantitative researcher in New York is advertised at $175,000 to $300,000, so a graduate starts level with the best-paid end of that range. The graduate ads also list Singapore, but state a base only for the US.
What does HRT typically pay?
Across its US filings, most of them for developers, the middle half of the base HRT files is $223,000 to $250,000. HRT files one range per position, and each range counts at its middle, because the lower end is often the legal minimum for the role.
By job title, the upper end of a filed range is typically $250,000, and it reaches $300,000, the graduate figure, for the general Software Engineer title.
Filed US base salaries, July 2025 to June 2026
| Job title as filed | Lower end (median) | Upper end (median) |
|---|---|---|
| Software Engineer (Core Developer) | $195,000 | $250,000 |
| Software Engineer | $200,000 | $300,000 |
| Core Developer | $195,000 | $250,000 |
| Algorithm Developer | $185,000 | $250,000 |
Hudson River Trading files a range for most positions. The lower end is often the legal minimum for the role, not a typical salary, so read the two ends together.
What does the first year pay in total?
Our estimate for a first-year quant developer, across every firm in New York, is $325,000 to $510,000 in base and bonus together. HRT does not publish its sign-on or performance bonus, and its entry-level engineers report pay in the upper half of that estimate.
Reported by employeesReported
Twelve entry-level software engineers in New York have reported their pay. Their total pay averages about $467,000: a base of about $240,000 and a bonus of about $219,000. The reports run from $150,000 to $752,500 in total pay and date from December 2024 to April 2026.
How does pay grow after the first year?
Steeply, and almost all of it in the bonus. In what HRT’s developers and algorithm developers report, the base does not rise after the first year, while total pay climbs with every band: from the fourth year, a strong year reaches several times the base.
What Hudson River Trading employees in the US report, by years of experienceReported
| Experience | Base | Total pay |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $250,000 | $450,000 to $470,000 |
| 1 to 3 years | $219,000 | $496,000 to $630,000 |
| 4 to 6 years | $200,000 | $550,000 to $1.3 million |
| 7 years or more | $200,000 | $723,000 to $1.4 million |
Base and bonus that traders, researchers and developers report on public pay sites. Total pay is the middle half of what they report, or both figures where two people report. A single year’s bonus can fall well outside it.
For the market as a whole, our estimate for a New York quant developer with 4 to 6 years of experience is $365,000 to $580,000, across every firm. What HRT staff report reaches well past the top of it.
How much do HRT interns earn?
HRT publishes intern pay for three offices. Its Summer 2027 algorithm development internship states a weekly base of $5,800 in New York, S$7,650 in Singapore and £4,350 in London, plus a signing bonus, company-paid housing and meals. Its London data science internship pays the same £4,350 a week, with company-paid housing and meals.
The New York rate matches the top of the $4,500 to $5,800 a week that Citadel advertises for its research interns. SIG pays more for Master’s and PhD students: $8,600 a week in New York.
What does HRT pay in London?
About £1.47 million per employee in 2025, in Hudson River Trading Europe Ltd, the UK company that files public accounts. It is small, with 21 staff on average, so a few people can move the average a lot, and it rose from £0.95 million in 2024.
Hudson River Trading Europe Ltd, filed accounts
| Year | Average staff | Wages and salaries | Per employee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 21 | £30.77m | £1.47m |
| 2024 | 26 | £24.58m | £0.95m |
How does HRT compare with other firms?
On graduate base pay, HRT shares the top of the US market with Jane Street and SIG: all three advertise a flat $300,000. Citadel and Citadel Securities advertise ranges that reach the same figure from $235,000, DRW advertises $250,000 to $300,000, and IMC $250,000.
Hudson River Trading states $300,000, the highest graduate base in any US ad, level with Jane Street and SIG. This is base pay only: the bonus comes on top, and within a few years it grows to match or pass the base.
- Hudson River Trading$300,000
- Jane Street$300,000
- Jump Tradingintern rate$300,000
- SIG$300,000
- DRW$250,000 to $300,000
- Citadel$235,000 to $300,000
- Citadel Securities$235,000 to $300,000
- IMC$250,000
- Optiver$200,000
- Two Sigma$165,000 to $190,000
- Flow Traders$175,000
The base salary each firm states in its US graduate job ads, September 2026. The bonus comes on top.
How do you get an HRT offer?
HRT hires people who can move between maths and code without friction. Its interviews test probability, expected value and statistics, and coding that often mixes the two: derive the best strategy in a dice or card game, then write the simulation that checks it. Interviewers move fast and judge your reasoning as much as the answer, so thinking aloud matters.
The interview guide walks through the online assessment, the phone screens and the onsite. The practice page collects questions matched to the firm, so the probability is routine before the coding starts.