Two Sigma: The chillest place to earn $400k as a graduate?
Making money in the hedge fund space is easy... having fun doing it is a whole other story. The phenomenal compensation paid by the heavy hitters comes with certain expectations and for some funds, that expectation is relentless work. One quant hedge fund, however, may be more pleasant to work for than others.
Two Sigma has long been known as a comparatively chill place to work. Five years ago, we wrote about its recording studio and ping pong tables, plus its "fiestas" to mark significant events. Less well known, perhaps, is that Two Sigma also operates "hacker labs" where its employees can collaborate on projects IRL involving things like...soldering.
Anecdotally, this makes it a popular place to work. Writing on forum website Blind, one Two Sigma employee says "everyone is very nice, rarely do people shout, and the only way to be fired through the mid-levels is dickishness or fraudulent behavior." A Citadel employee who formerly worked for Two Sigma said the company had, "definitely more of a tech company vibe," and was "more chill" than his current home.
That doesn't make Two Sigma perfect, however. One Two Sigma employee says compensation progression is "slow-ish". This can somewhat be seen by Levels.fyi's end of year compensation report where they ranked number one for entry level salaries but tapered off as seniority grew.
As with all hedge funds, your pay will always depend on the specifics of your work. On Levels.fyi for example, an entry level AI and machine learning engineer at Two Sigma recently reported total compensation of over $400k, while an entry level data engineer reported a TC of just $175k in 2023. Interestingly, their base salaries were just $50k apart.
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