Typical quant base
$185,000 to $259,000
Traders, researchers and developers, all levels
Graduate base, top firms
$300,000
Jane Street, HRT and SIG, in their ads
Quant trader, first year
EstimateAbout $295,000 to $450,000
Base plus bonus, before tax
Intern pay, SIG
$8,600 a week
Master’s and PhD interns, plus housing and a signing bonus
A quant in New York typically earns a base salary of $185,000 to $259,000. Graduates at Jane Street, Hudson River Trading and SIG start on $300,000, and a yearly bonus is paid on top of the base.
New York is the center of the US quant industry. Citadel, Millennium, Jane Street, Two Sigma, SIG, HRT and Jump all hire there. New York City also requires pay ranges in job ads, so graduate pay in the city is public for most firms.
How much do quants make in New York?
A quant trader in New York typically earns a base of $188,000 to $300,000, a quant researcher $182,000 to $250,000 and a quant developer $187,000 to $262,000. Each range is the middle half of the base pay firms file for the role in the city, at every firm and every level.
That typical base sits below the $300,000 that Jane Street, HRT and SIG advertise to graduates. It covers every firm and every stage of a career, not only the best-paying graduate offers. And a firm that files a range counts at the middle of it, while the lower end of such a range is often the legal minimum.
Typical base pay in New York, July 2025 to June 2026
| Role | Typical base | Median |
|---|---|---|
| Quant trader | $188,000 to $300,000 | $200,000 |
| Quant researcher | $182,000 to $250,000 | $220,000 |
| Quant developer | $187,000 to $262,000 | $223,000 |
The middle half of the base firms file, across every firm and every level. Graduates at the best-paying firms start higher, and the bonus is paid on top.
What does a New York quant earn with the bonus?
With the bonus, our estimate for a first-year quant trader in New York is $295,000 to $450,000 a year before tax. With 4 to 6 years of experience the estimate rises to $395,000 to $930,000, although the base has barely moved.
The low end of each range is an ordinary year at an ordinary firm, and the top is a strong year at the best-paying firms. Firms set the bonus each year and call it discretionary: Jane Street’s ads say base pay is only one part of total pay, alongside an annual discretionary bonus.
At a $220k base, quant researchers in New York make an estimated $325k to $450k in the first year and $660k to $1.54m after 7 years. The base barely moves with the years; the bonus does the growing, and in a strong year at the best-paying firms it takes total pay to about 7 times the base.
Typical range of base filed for the role: $180k to $250k.
- Researcher, Year 1: base about $220k, estimated total pay $325k to $450k.
- Researcher, 1 to 3 years: base about $220k, estimated total pay $370k to $620k.
- Researcher, 4 to 6 years: base about $220k, estimated total pay $435k to $930k.
- Researcher, 7 years or more: base about $220k, estimated total pay $660k to $1.54m.
Senior pay goes well past this chart. Jane Street paid an average of $2.68 million per employee in 2025, and the highest-paid director of Two Sigma’s London company received £5.41 million.
A year, before tax, not counting a sign-on bonus. The low end of each column is an ordinary year at an ordinary firm; the top is a strong year at the best-paying firms. † Set by Tradermath from what senior people earn in the market, because too few of them report their pay.
How this estimate is worked out
The base is the one on the slider, within the range firms file for the role in their US salary filings. The bonus is the share of base that people in the role report at each stage, from the lower quarter of reports to the top tenth. The top of a column is at least what the best-paid tenth of employees report in total, because the best-paying firms also pay the highest base. The top firms state $300,000 for graduates. The bonus stays the same share when you move the slider, so a higher base brings a larger bonus.
Estimated total pay in New York, base plus bonusEstimate
| Experience | Quant trader | Quant researcher | Quant developer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | About $295,000 to $450,000 | About $325,000 to $450,000 | About $325,000 to $510,000 |
| 1 to 3 years | About $335,000 to $565,000 | About $370,000 to $620,000 | About $345,000 to $535,000 |
| 4 to 6 years | About $395,000 to $930,000 | About $435,000 to $930,000 | About $365,000 to $580,000 |
| 7 years or more | About $600,000 to $1,400,000 | About $660,000 to $1,540,000 | About $445,000 to $900,000 |
An estimate, a year before tax, not counting a sign-on bonus. It starts from the median base filed for the role. The low end adds the bonus of an ordinary year at an ordinary firm; the top is a strong year at the best-paying firms, at least what the best-paid tenth of employees report in total. From 7 years, Tradermath sets the trader and researcher bonus from what senior people in these roles earn in the market, because too few of them report their pay.
What do New York firms pay graduates?
Jane Street advertises $300,000 for new-grad traders, researchers and software engineers, HRT $300,000 for 2027 algorithm developers, and SIG $300,000 for Master’s and PhD quantitative researchers and systematic traders. DRW advertises $250,000 to $300,000 for graduate quantitative researchers in New York and Chicago.
Lower down, Flow Traders advertises $175,000 for a graduate quantitative trader, and Two Sigma $165,000 to $190,000 for campus software engineers. So the spread between graduate offers in one city is wide, and the firm matters more than the role: at Jane Street a trader and an engineer start on the same base.
Jane Street, Hudson River Trading and SIG advertise $300k, the highest graduate base in any US ad; the list starts at $165k. 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.
Which firms hire quants in New York, and what do they file?
Both hedge funds and trading firms hire quants in New York. The hedge funds include Citadel, Millennium, Point72, D. E. Shaw, Two Sigma and Balyasny. The trading firms include Jane Street, SIG, HRT, Jump, Tower Research Capital, DRW and Flow Traders.
The table lists each firm’s main quant job title in New York and the base pay it files for it, highest first. The filings cover experienced hires as well as graduates, so a firm’s figure here can differ from its graduate ad.
Filed base pay by firm in New York, July 2025 to June 2026
| Firm | Main quant title | Filed base pay |
|---|---|---|
| Jane Street | Software Engineer | $300,000 |
| Point72 | IAC Researcher | $300,000 |
| Citadel | Software Engineer | $200,000 to $295,000 |
| Jump Trading | Quantitative Researcher | $287,500 |
| D. E. Shaw | Software Developer | $275,000 |
| Citadel Securities | Software Engineer | $103,210 to $255,000 |
| Tower Research Capital | Quantitative Researcher | $150,000 to $250,000 |
| Two Sigma | Quantitative Researcher | $235,000 |
| Cubist | Research Analyst | $225,000 |
| Millennium | Quantitative Researcher | $109,491 to $210,000 |
| Balyasny | Quantitative Researcher | $200,000 |
| Squarepoint | Quantitative Researcher | $185,000 |
A firm that files a range shows the median of both ends. The lower end is often the legal minimum for the role.
How much do New York quant interns earn?
SIG pays Master’s and PhD interns $8,600 a week in New York, for a ten-week program, with a signing bonus, housing, breakfast and lunch. XTX Markets pays $35,000 a month for its AI research internship in the city.
HRT pays $5,800 a week, with a signing bonus, company-paid housing and meals. Jane Street states a $300,000 yearly base, about $5,770 a week. Jump states $300,000 a year for trader interns in New York and Chicago, DRW $250,000 to $300,000 for research interns, and Flow Traders $150,000 for its trading interns. A yearly rate is paid only for the weeks you work.
How is a New York salary taxed?
A resident of New York City pays three income taxes: federal, New York State and New York City. Of the three US quant cities, that leaves the least of a salary in New York. Chicago adds only the Illinois state tax, and Florida charges no state income tax at all.
Federal tax reaches 35% on taxable income above $256,225 and 37% above $640,600. Social Security takes 6.2% of wages up to $184,500, and Medicare 1.45% of all wages, plus 0.9% on wages above $200,000.
New York State’s rate rises with income, to 6.85% on taxable income from $215,400 to $1,077,550. At high incomes the state also takes back the benefit of its lower bands, so all of a large salary is taxed at the rate of its top band. New York City then adds 3.078% to 3.876%, with the top rate from $50,000 of taxable income.
The take-home comparison works out what is left after all three taxes, and sets New York beside Chicago, Miami and the cities abroad.
How do you get an offer at a New York trading firm?
The firms that pay the most in New York also test the hardest. Most processes start with a timed online assessment of mental arithmetic and number sequences. Probability puzzles, expected-value questions and market-making games follow, where you price and size a trade on the spot. Developers add coding rounds.
Jane Street’s interviews lean on probability and betting games, and SIG screens graduates with an online assessment of its own. The practice page has timed tests and interview questions in each firm’s format, so the first market-making game you play is not the one in the interview.