Hiring Managers Dish on The best way to Get a Tech Job at Citadel Securities

Citadel Securities, which generated about $7.5 billion in income final yr, is now centered on hiring considerate technologists who drive industrial outcomes for the agency.

The buying and selling home matches sellers and patrons of shares, bonds, and currencies worldwide. The tech groups construct all the things from the buying and selling platforms to the plumbing that ingests market information feeds, and instruments that assist analyze petabytes of information to mannequin the market. 

“We’re not on the lookout for people who find themselves centered on expertise for expertise’s sake or the most recent development. We’re on the lookout for individuals who can drive a giant industrial affect for the agency,” Aaron Moss, head of expertise recruiting for Citadel Securities, advised Insider. That might seem like constructing a cloud-based resolution low on compute energy and reminiscence  — and prices.

Citadel Securities’s tech management has made industrial considering one of many key pillars of the engineering group, which employs a whole bunch and is without doubt one of the largest groups on the agency. As Josh Woods, the agency’s chief expertise officer, strategizes in regards to the agency’s future, he desires engineers who display they will clear up difficult, ambiguous issues and show they will drive the enterprise ahead.

It is not simply Griffin’s store the place enterprise aptitude and curiosity in finance go a great distance. Olga Naumovich, who’s in control of Millennium Administration’s tech build-out in Miami, beforehand advised Insider she desires to rent engineers with “a ardour for studying about monetary markets,” much more importantly than having “a deep understanding of expertise.”

“Not are technical abilities sufficient to land a job, however candidates should be capable of join the dots and make an affect to the underside line for the agency,” Jayson Bevacqua, a expertise recruiter at Solaris Search Companions, mentioned. He added he is seen an uptick in recent grads trying to be part of elite buying and selling corporations over large tech names. 

It is aggressive to land a tech job at Citadel Securities — the agency receives 1000’s of functions for dozens of positions yearly — however doing so may end in a base wage of as much as $350,000, in response to a current job posting for a software program engineer. 

The agency, which has about 10 open positions posted on its web site, has an unrestrained urge for food for prime tech expertise. It hires opportunistically, which means its willingness to rent the proper candidates doesn’t fluctuate with the market’s ups and downs, which may be useful when the marketplace for tech expertise is a combined bag. In a single current case, Citadel Securities prolonged a suggestion to a promising younger intern, despite the fact that the hiring supervisor had been on the lookout for a extra skilled rent.

Listed below are 5 do’s and don’ts for candidates, in response to 4 senior tech leaders and hiring managers at Citadel Securities:

1. Exhibit your low-level abilities

For Citadel Securities’s head of systematic buying and selling expertise, Damien Neff, it has been more and more difficult to search out low-level methods engineers who work near the {hardware} and perceive how computer systems work. However such engineers are essential at a high-frequency buying and selling agency like Citadel Securities, the place ingesting and turning round a chunk of market information and sending an order out nanoseconds later depends on hyper velocity and ultra-low processing occasions.

“The business is getting very excessive stage with issues like AI, which push individuals even additional away from that understanding,” Neff advised Insider.

Certainly, instruments like AI, automation, and even some accessible coding languages like Python could make technologists’ work extra environment friendly. However that effectivity can strip away a number of the understanding and expertise of interacting with the {hardware}.

2. Take possession of your work — and the related tech spend

Senior tech leaders count on their new hires to personal their work and preserve prices down. 

Take the general public cloud, which has change into a beneficial a part of Wall Avenue’s plumbing however which may additionally add up in prices. And people prices may be largely depending on the individuals consuming the tech as a result of the general public cloud is billed per the quantity of computing and reminiscence used. 

“Typically talking, cloud may be cheap, however it could actually add it up rapidly. In case you’re not cautious, you may spend all of your cash there,” Costas Bekas, a veteran technologist who heads up CitSec’s analysis platform, advised Insider. “That is only one instance of when it is vital to have a industrial mindset — of why we want individuals to change into homeowners of what they do.”

3. Spotlight your gentle abilities, particularly efficient communication

When interested by his group’s bench energy, Neff appears to be like for a well-balanced group, which is less complicated mentioned than executed. Neff leads three groups (about 80 individuals) who construct, function, and implement software program.

“Lots of people in our subject are very analytical. They’re blissful to be centered on the issue, and I want that, however I additionally want the individuals who can talk inside and throughout groups,” Neff mentioned. 

His group consists of software program engineers, system-reliability engineers, high-level architects, and mechanical engineers who work carefully with the {hardware} — however most of all, he wants extroverts who’re comfy speaking with all kinds of individuals, from quantitative researchers to the CTO.

One other gentle talent to showcase is teamwork and your willingness to roll up your sleeves to assist out, Bekas mentioned. He lately interviewed an “extremely gifted” engineer from a tech firm who did not get a suggestion as a result of Bekas mentioned he thought the individual would not soar in to assist the group with thorny edge instances and assignments. 

4. Present that you’re captivated with one thing

Among the finest issues you are able to do throughout an interview is put your ardour on show, Neff mentioned. A candidate could possibly be enthusiastic about new capabilities of a given coding language or be enthralled by equities buying and selling — no matter it might be, simply guarantee it shines via the interview. For Neff, who joined the agency in 2022 from the online game business, ardour interprets to motivation. 

“I simply have to form it within the route that the agency must get enterprise worth out of it,” Neff mentioned. 

5. Do not are available in unprepared

Citadel Securities head of tech recruiting, Moss, mentioned the largest crimson flag is just not doing all of your due diligence earlier than the interview course of, which normally spans 5 conferences.

The candidate ought to analysis the enterprise space they’re interviewing for and find out about who they’re assembly with  — even look the individual up on LinkedIn.