This post will try to give an idea about the pay structure / package / CTC of an employee in a High Frequency Trading Firm (HFT) in India. The overall CTC of HFTs easily exceeds the CTC of software firms in india (Google India, Microsoft India, Adobe India etc)
The major roles that these companies hire for and their corresponding pay structure is given below-
Quant Trader / Quant Researcher / Strategist -
This is the highest paying role in an HFT. Their role comprises of making strategies for the market and actually executing these in the market to make money. Their work is very hectic and their performance affects the company directlly and on a major scale.
Their pay structure / CTC usually comprises of the following components -
Base - This is the base pay for the role. This number divided by 12 months is what the trader actually gets each month as the base salary. This comprises of about 60-70 percent of the CTC for a fresher and around 10-20 percent of the CTC as the seniority and experience increases.
Joining Bonus - This is a one time pay which the employee gets on joining the firm. This usually comes with a clause that ensures that this is to be returned if the employee leaves the firm within x monthls/ years.
Performance Bonus - The trader is most excited for this part. This part is only 20-30% of the CTC for a fresher but as the seniority increases, as the trader starts to make more and more money for the company, this part increases exponentially and easily overshadows the base part of the pay.
A typical example for the overall CTC in a HFT in India -
30 (base) + 4 (joining bonus) + 10-14 (bonus) {in lakhs}
Infrastructure Developer -
This is the second highest paying role in an HFT. Their role comprises of analysing the latency of the framework on which the strategies run from the local system to the exchange and back. Their bonus is not as variable as the Quant Trader/Researcher's bonus but it increases gradually and consistently.
I have a blog post explaining their work in detail. Please check it out if interested.
Their pay structure / CTC usually comprises of the following components -
Base - This is the base pay for the role. This number divided by 12 months is what the trader actually gets each month as the base salary. This comprises of about 70-80 percent of the CTC for a fresher and around 30-50 percent of the CTC as the seniority and experience increases.
Joining Bonus - This is a one time pay which the employee gets on joining the firm. This usually comes with a clause that ensures that this is to be returned if the employee leaves the firm within x monthls/ years.
Performance Bonus - This part gradually increases and is not that variable and hence the overall CTC starts lagging in comparison the Quant Trader.
A typical example for the overall CTC in a HFT in India -
28 (base) + 4 (joining bonus) + 8-12 (bonus) {in lakhs}
Data Scientist -
This role is very similar to Infrastuctre role in terms of amount of work and overall pace of the work in an HFT. Their role comprises of analysing the data and optimising it so that they are able to store maximum amount of data taking the least space or storing only essential values. They are also required to replicate the trading data for a particular time period so that strategies may try run on them and analyse the performce. The bonus is similar to Infrastructure role.
Their pay structure / CTC usually comprises of the following components -
Base - This is the base pay for the role. This number divided by 12 months is what the trader actually gets each month as the base salary. This comprises of about 70-80 percent of the CTC for a fresher and around 30-50 percent of the CTC as the seniority and experience increases.
Joining Bonus - This is a one time pay which the employee gets on joining the firm. This usually comes with a clause that ensures that this is to be returned if the employee leaves the firm within x monthls/ years.
Performance Bonus - This part gradually increases and is not that variable and hence the overall CTC starts lagging in comparison the Quant Trader.
A typical example for the overall CTC in a HFT in India -
28 (base) + 4 (joining bonus) + 8-12 (bonus) {in lakhs}
I have done Master of statistics from Indian statistical Institute and mtech in cse from iisc bangalore. My strong areas are quantitative finance stochastic calculus and programing in c++ and python. Do I stand a chance of landing a job at any hft.
ReplyDeleteI think they prefer students from iits. Please send your suggestions. Thanks
Hi, as a part of being a quantitative trader in a HFT, I have taken multiple interviews for both internships and jobs. What we look for in a candidate is how good is their problem solving skills apart, their mental maths abilities and coding. We judge their problem solving skills, by asking them to solve various puzzles.
DeleteAlthough we prefer students from top IITs and that too students from Computer Science or Maths and Computing Branch, if a students is from some other background but has good mathematics and coding base then they are given opportunity to sit for interviews and are selected based on their performance in that. So I think you definitely have a chance of landing a job in the top HFTs.
I am third year undergraduate pursuing my integrated masters in information technology from IIIT Gwalior. What should be my preparation path to land an intern/placement at a HFT firm.
ReplyDeleteDoes hft's hire good profile mtech guys from IIT's for quantitative researcher jobs...
ReplyDeleteyes but only if you are good in coding, mathematical abilities ,problem solving
DeleteOne of my friend recently got a job in an Indian hft company with a 16 lakh base
ReplyDelete