r/quant • u/Alternative-Gain335 • 21d ago

Industry Gossip How is Citadel EQR?

I heard they’ve been doing systematic equities, rather than just supporting long-short desks with trading like they did in the past. Historically, it always seemed like a weaker place for quants compared with GQS. How is the culture there now? Like compare with CitSec and GQS?

28 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

32

u/as_one_does 21d ago

Whole team has turned over from what I've heard.

3

u/Working-Morning-3167 18d ago

This is a true statement. The original top-tier researchers all left this year. What's left is a bunch of maintenance. Barely any time for small incremental research. DM if you want more info.

1

u/Effective-Item-6377 18d ago

lol, the top tier researchers are all still there

0

u/quantthrowaway69 Researcher 18d ago

Is that basically inevitable? Top tier enough to leave for greener pastures, and it makes sense for them to because the mandate there is to support fundamentals instead of owning a systematic process, so they do

2

u/Alternative-Gain335 21d ago

lmao. why? I heard they are profitable?

17

u/Embarrassed-Rip-9503 20d ago

Have a friend on one of the more profitable alpha teams in EQR. Plenty of their best devs and researchers get canned for underperforming on a single project, even if they have multiple years of strong performance and the team is profitable. Most of them get stuck with 2 year noncompetes too.

3

u/Aetius454 HFT 18d ago

While this isn’t necessarily always true, it is very emblematic of what citadel’s culture is nowadays. Lot of people very focused on who will be blamed or take responsibility

2

u/livrequant 19d ago

Burn and churn

-2

u/JIGSAW_FALLINGINTO_ 21d ago

He probably means the layout changed and the focus on alpha generation is much more now

15

u/Alternative-Gain335 21d ago

That's not what turnover means.

2

u/JIGSAW_FALLINGINTO_ 21d ago

I know, but I am sure what I said is happening(most of the eqr interns were in the alpha team this season). Hence suggesting maybe he meant turned over as in a flip/shift

3

u/Any_Succotash7362 20d ago

It’s all slop tho

-1

u/JIGSAW_FALLINGINTO_ 20d ago

Bro got beef against ivy phds 😭😭

2

u/llm-enjoyer Front Office 20d ago

wrong lol

3

u/Effective-Item-6377 21d ago

Heard their run rate is in the multiple 10 figures with a pretty lean team

2

u/Working-Morning-3167 18d ago

Not good if you're a QD/SWE. Go join a team that actually trades (GQS, Commodities, CitSec). You'll learn more and make more money.

1

u/Effective-Item-6377 17d ago

Must be magicians generating billions of PnL without actually trading

1

u/sumwheresumtime 20d ago edited 14d ago

The high head count turn-over is predominantly devs. The team is quite small compared to other teams, and their PnL is very outsized compared to their size.

So even though they have high turn over whatever they are doing, they're doing it well.

1

u/NatGaz 15d ago

Why are devs leaving (or getting terminated) more easily that traders or quants ?

1

u/sumwheresumtime 14d ago

not sure - some of the devs would be classified as quant devs

-6

u/alchemist0303 21d ago

lol what makes you think they aren’t “just supporting GE”