Quant Trader
- Fast expected value, pricing judgment, and risk framing.
- What helps: daily reps, probability fluency, and calm communication.
- Best first project: market-making exercise logs plus competition notes.
Research // Recruiting Intel
Firm Database // Role Fit
Use this as planning intelligence, not a ranking table. The right question is what kind of work you want to do, what that work rewards, and which experience you can actually build over the next two semesters.
01 // ROLE_MAP
Quant Researcher
- Statistical skepticism, experimentation, and careful model checks.
- What helps: notebooks, model write-ups, and clean reasoning about assumptions.
- Best first project: one honest backtest with failure analysis.
Quant Developer
- Performance-minded systems work, reliability, and tooling.
- What helps: strong CS fundamentals, C++/Python, and shipped systems work.
- Best first project: simulator, data workflow, or exchange tooling repo.
Planning note: the windows below are AggieQuant planning estimates built from recent recruiting patterns, not official posting guarantees. Verify every role on the firm's career page before treating a month as live.
03 // QUICK_COMPARE
| Lane | Best first move | Useful first filters | Common trap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market maker | Fast reasoning reps Mental math, EV, options intuition, and clean spoken process. |
Start with Jane Street, HRT, Optiver, IMC, and Citadel Securities. | Practicing puzzles without explaining the decision process out loud. |
| Prop trading | Market judgment Game logs, probability drills, and one clear project or strategy note. |
Compare SIG, DRW, Akuna, and Jump for different mixes of trading and systems work. | Applying everywhere with no answer for why this trading style fits you. |
| Research | Honest experimentation Notebook depth, statistics, and a write-up that admits uncertainty. |
Use Two Sigma, Citadel, and market-maker research roles as calibration points. | Showing a backtest result without assumptions, controls, or failure analysis. |
| Infra / SWE | Reliable building Systems projects, data workflows, simulators, and clean debugging stories. |
Prioritize HRT, Jump, Five Rings, Citadel, and any firm with explicit platform roles. | Over-polishing finance language while underselling the engineering tradeoffs. |
04// FIRM_TABLE
Firm
Type
Core roles
Planning window
Interview load
Club read
05 // HOW_TO_USE_IT
Freshman / early explorer
Start with two market makers, one hedge fund, and one systems-heavy seat. Focus on understanding interview styles, not predicting your final destination.
Sophomore with a start
Anchor on the lane your projects already support. If your best work is code, lean into dev/system seats. If your best work is notebooks or competitions, tilt research or trading.
Junior pushing for internships
Bias toward firms whose interview load matches your strongest prepared surface. Rolling review matters more than theoretical fit if you are late.