Quant trader base
$165,000 to $250,000
Typical US base, middle half of filed pay
Top graduate base
$300,000
Jane Street, HRT and SIG, US job ads
US trader, year 1
EstimateAbout $290,000 to $450,000
Base plus bonus, before tax
US trader, 4 to 6 years
EstimateAbout $390,000 to $930,000
Base plus bonus, before tax
A quant at a trading firm or hedge fund is paid a base salary and a yearly bonus, and often a sign-on bonus in the first year. Only the base is public, through US job ads and US salary filings.
This guide explains each part: what the package is made of, how firms decide and pay the bonus, how large it gets with experience, and what a sign-on adds.
What do quants earn?
A quant trader in the US typically earns a base of $165,000 to $250,000, a quant researcher $180,000 to $250,000 and a quant developer $175,000 to $250,000. With the bonus, our estimate for a first-year quant trader is $290,000 to $450,000. The salary hub has the full picture, by firm, city and role.
Typical base pay in the US, July 2025 to June 2026
| Role | Typical base | Median |
|---|---|---|
| Quant trader | $165,000 to $250,000 | $197,000 |
| Quant researcher | $180,000 to $250,000 | $213,000 |
| Quant developer | $175,000 to $250,000 | $200,000 |
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 is quant compensation made of?
Three parts: a base salary, a yearly bonus and, at many firms, a sign-on bonus for new hires. The base is the part firms publish. At the top US firms it is $300,000 for a graduate, and it changes little with seniority.
The bonus is the part that grows. Firms decide it each year and do not publish it, and for an experienced trader it can be several times the base. At Flow Traders, variable pay was 49.1% of average pay per employee in 2025.
The sign-on is paid once, when you join. Few firms state the amount. HRT’s graduate ads include a sign-on bonus with no figure, and Da Vinci states both parts: a €100,000 base and a €20,000 sign-on for graduate traders in Amsterdam. Its graduate quants in Hong Kong get the same €20,000.
What do the top firms pay?
A $300,000 base for graduates in the US, at Jane Street, HRT and SIG, each of which states it in its graduate ads. DRW, Citadel and Citadel Securities advertise ranges that end at $300,000. IMC advertises $250,000 for traders and researchers, and Two Sigma $165,000 to $190,000 for campus engineers.
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.
How does the bonus work?
The firms call the bonus discretionary in their job ads: the firm decides it each year. Jane Street, HRT, Citadel, DRW, IMC, Two Sigma and Flow Traders all use the word. None of them publishes a formula.
Flow Traders, a listed company, describes the process in its remuneration report. Most firms publish nothing like it, so the steps below use Flow Traders as the example where no other source covers a step.
- 1The firm’s yearThe firm’s results for the year decide how much there is to share.
- 2The bonus poolPart of the result goes into one pool for everyone’s bonus.
Example: At Flow Traders in 2025, the pool was €74.4 million: 32.5% of the operating result.
- 3The splitThe pool is shared out between teams and people. At Flow Traders the split follows the results of the firm and of each business unit, each person’s performance and their contribution over the long term, not the profit one person makes.
- 4Your awardThe firm decides it each year, from your own performance and the results of your team and the firm. Firms weigh these in different ways. Some pay a trader a share of the profit they make. Others, like Flow Traders, pay from one firm-wide pool and do not tie an award directly to one person’s profit.
Example: A trader paid on profit typically receives 30% to 50% of it in the US, and 10% to 40% in Europe, recruiters say.
- 5Paid outCash, nowPart of the award is paid in cash when it is decided.Deferred, later yearsThe rest is paid over later years, in shares, and a larger award has a larger deferred part. A later loss can reduce it.
Example: At XTX Markets, bonuses vest over three years.
- Timing. Flow Traders sets objectives at the start of each year and reviews performance twice during it. Firms do not publish the month in which they pay the bonus.
- The first year. Most firms do not publish whether the first bonus is guaranteed. Flow Traders guarantees no variable pay, with one exception: it can guarantee it to a new hire, for the first year only, and only when its capital base is strong.
Variable pay is a large share of the total, and it moves a lot. At Flow Traders it was 49.1% of average pay per employee in 2025, and 56.8% in 2024. In the five-year table of its report, average pay per employee fell by 59% in one year and rose by 58% in another.
The same discretion is why US salary filings show base pay only. Under the US rules, a future bonus counts toward the filed wage only if its payment is assured, and not if it depends on something like the firm’s annual profits. A discretionary bonus is not assured, so it stays out of the filed figures.
How big is a quant bonus, and is it guaranteed?
For a trader or researcher with a few years behind them, about as large as the base or larger: with 4 to 6 years of experience, a US quant trader’s bonus runs from about the size of the base in an ordinary year to several times it in a strong one. Firms keep the bonus private, so the estimate table below shows total pay by role and years of experience.
It is rarely guaranteed. Firms decide the bonus each year from the firm’s results, the team’s and your own, and most do not say whether the first one is guaranteed. Flow Traders guarantees variable pay only to a new hire, for the first year.
Reported by employeesReported
Entry-level software engineers report average total pay of about $467,000 at HRT and $386,000 at Jane Street, and entry-level researchers about $386,000 at Citadel.
What does total pay look like with the bonus?
With the bonus, our estimate for a US quant trader runs from $290,000 to $450,000 in the first year to $590,000 to $1,380,000 after 7 years, while the base barely moves.
The chart and the table below estimate total pay in the US by years of experience: the typical base for each role, plus an estimated bonus. Both are labelled Estimate, because the bonus in any one year can fall outside them.
At a $213k base, quant researchers in the US make an estimated $310k to $450k in the first year and $640k to $1.49m 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 $213k, estimated total pay $310k to $450k.
- Researcher, 1 to 3 years: base about $213k, estimated total pay $355k to $600k.
- Researcher, 4 to 6 years: base about $213k, estimated total pay $420k to $930k.
- Researcher, 7 years or more: base about $213k, estimated total pay $640k to $1.49m.
Senior pay goes well past this chart. Jane Street paid an average of $2.68 million per employee in 2025.
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 the US, base plus bonusEstimate
| Experience | Quant trader | Quant researcher | Quant developer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | About $290,000 to $450,000 | About $310,000 to $450,000 | About $295,000 to $510,000 |
| 1 to 3 years | About $330,000 to $560,000 | About $355,000 to $600,000 | About $310,000 to $520,000 |
| 4 to 6 years | About $390,000 to $930,000 | About $420,000 to $930,000 | About $325,000 to $545,000 |
| 7 years or more | About $590,000 to $1,380,000 | About $640,000 to $1,490,000 | About $400,000 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.
Reported by employeesReported
A quantitative researcher at Jump with one to three years in Chicago reported $182,000 in base and $187,000 in additional pay (2024). A quantitative trader at SIG with one to three years reported $214,000 in base and $99,000 in additional pay (2025). A software engineer at Citadel Securities with two years in New York reported $260,000 in base and $260,000 in bonus (2026).
Do traders, researchers and developers earn the same?
At graduate level the base is often the same. Jane Street advertises $300,000 for new-grad traders, researchers and software engineers, and SIG $300,000 for both its researchers and its systematic traders. IMC advertises $250,000 for graduate traders and researchers and $200,000 for graduate engineers.
How does quant pay change by city?
The US pays the highest base. The typical quant base is $185,000 to $259,000 in New York and $165,000 to $213,000 in Chicago. Recruiters put mid-level quants at £90,000 to £130,000 in London and €85,000 to €120,000 in Amsterdam.
US pay is also the most public: firms state it in their ads and file it with the government for every work visa.
London ads rarely state pay. Filed UK accounts show averages across all staff that are far above the recruiter bands: $1.88 million per employee at Jane Street’s UK partnership in 2025 (its accounts are in US dollars).
In Amsterdam, Da Vinci states pay in its job ads, and IMC and Flow Traders leave it out of theirs. Flow Traders does publish an audited average of €224,200 per employee for 2025, across all its offices.
In Asia, few firms state pay at all. Da Vinci offers graduate quants in Hong Kong the same €100,000 base as in Amsterdam, and HRT pays interns in Singapore S$7,650 a week.
What do quant interns earn?
Up to $8,600 a week in the US, paid for the weeks they work. SIG pays that to its Master’s and PhD interns, HRT $5,800 a week in New York plus company-paid housing and meals, and Citadel $4,500 to $5,800 a week. Jane Street states a $300,000 yearly base for interns, about $5,770 a week.
Where do these figures come from?
Every figure in this guide comes from one of the kinds of source below. Each one answers a different question, so the pages keep them apart.
- Firms’ own job ads: the base salary a firm states in a live ad. This is the clearest figure for a graduate role.
- US salary filings: the base salary a firm files with the US government for each work visa. They cover every level, not only graduates.
- Typical pay comes from those filings. It is the middle half of the base pay firms file for a role, across all firms and levels. A firm that files a range counts at the middle of its range, because the lower end is often the legal minimum. It is base pay only, without the bonus.
- Company accounts and annual reports: the staff costs a company files each year, divided by its average headcount. The result includes bonuses and every role, so it is an average, not a salary.
- Recruiter surveys: the base pay bands recruiters see across the market, for mid-level and senior hires.
- What employees report about their own pay. These figures are always labelled Reported, and they never appear in a headline.
- The estimate of total pay adds a bonus to a typical base. In the US the base is the median that firms file for the role; elsewhere it comes from recruiter surveys and firms’ job ads. The bonus is a share of the base for each band of experience, taken from what employees report. 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 in the US. For a few bands too few people report their pay, so Tradermath sets the share from market pay: senior traders and researchers, and traders and researchers in London and Amsterdam. Where a country has too few reports for a band, the estimate uses the US share, scaled down in Hong Kong and Singapore to how bonuses there compare with the US. Every estimate is labelled Estimate and never appears in a headline. The bonus changes from year to year, so a real year can fall outside it.
- The press and the US rules: a few facts about how the bonus is paid, such as vesting and what a salary filing counts.