As we have observed, the new regret among quantitative portfolio managers is that they joined an electronic trading firm instead of a hedge fund when they left a bank. Jane Street and Citadel Securities are thought to be thriving. Hedge funds, not so much.
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There are other options. At the peak of the last Thursday’s fund chaos, Christina Qi, founder and CEO of market data platform Databento, broadcast on social media that she had 20 jobs to fill. Qi said she would like to fill them with people coming out of “pod shops.”
“Our team includes alumni from Citadel, Two Sigma, Tower Research, Flow Traders, SIG, and other leading trading firms,” said Qi, inviting applicants to work remotely and flexibly and to “be able to talk openly about what you do for a living.”
Qi tells us that at least 2,000 applicants responded to her call. Every single one was reviewed “by hand.”
The applications came mostly from hedge funds and prop shops, says Qi. They also came from fintechs, crypto firms and banks. And they came from independent traders. There are many people out there.
Qi says 2,000 applications for 20 jobs sounds like a lot but is actually “pretty average given the state of the job market these days.”
Databento raised $97m in series B financing in July. Qi founded the firm in 2020 after having some awkward finance internships. The last time we spoke to her, she’d had 20,000 applications for five jobs so maybe things have improved for the jobseeker.
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