Which are the biggest quant hedge funds and what do they pay?

If you want to be a trader it will help to be a strong risk taker with deep market knowledge. It will also help to be extremely good at mathematics and data analysis. Quants, who primarily occupy the latter camp, are taking over the market; pure quant hedge funds  accounted for ~10% of hedge fund assets under management in 2025 according to With Intelligence, while the major multistrategy funds are increasingly growing their quant divisions. 

This is an article about the big quant hedge funds, what their strategies are, and what it's like to work for them. 

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What trading strategies do quants use?

Quant hedge funds follow a few key strategies:

• Statistical Arbitrage (StatArb) - Quants will look for two (or more) financial instruments which are statistically correlated. When one changes and the other hasn't quants will look to capitalize on this momentary price inefficiency for a quick profit. There are various ways of doing this, including trading stocks for similar companies (like Nike and Adidas), or by trading both an ETF and its component stocks.
• Mean Reversion - Quants using this strategy will try to estimate a fair value for a given stock or product. When the price goes below the expected value, they'll buy, when it goes above they'll sell or short.
• Factor Investing - Quants using this strategy will evaluate a range of assets based on a number of factors like momentum, volatility and size. They'll look at historic data to see how these or similar assets are affected by changes in these factors, and use it to devise a trading strategy.
• Machine learning - An increasingly popular trading method. Machine learning quants use complex algorithms to look for specific signals in datasets that are too large for them to analyze using traditional methods. Those signals will tell the quant to either buy or sell an asset.

Quants employ various statistical techniques across all these strategies, but perhaps the most important is linear regression (i.e. a model that predicts the value of one variable based on the value of another). Factor investment quants use it to benchmark specific factors and weight their overall importance within the strategy. Mean reversion quants use it to estimate the fair value of their asset. Some argue that linear regression is, itself, a machine learning method, but it's also used to create a benchmark for algorithms using ML in a more modern sense.

What is a quant hedge fund?

Self-evidently, quant hedge funds are hedge funds. Not all hedge funds, however, are quant funds. The difference comes down to how involved the quants are in trading decisions.

All hedge funds try to make money in both good and bad market conditions; they'll go long on some assets, meaning they buy them expecting the price to rise, and go short on others, which generally means investing in a financial product that benefits when the price of something else goes down. 

Almost all hedge funds employ quants, as it would be pretty foolish to ignore market data in its entirety. A quant in your average hedge fund will usually create mathematically focused trading strategies, use code to build a system that trades that strategy, and test it using historic market data. For traditional hedge funds, however, this is predominantly used as colour for the portfolio manager (PM), who can choose to incorporate as much or as little of that strategy into their own trades as they want. In quant funds, these strategies are directly implemented into markets much more often.

There are benefits and costs to either side. Quants in traditional hedge funds complain that their work is primarily in support of the PM. The roles can still be very lucrative, however, and if you're associated with a high-performing PM, their performance-based pay often trickles down to you.

Quant funds, meanwhile, can be a bit opaque. Many pure quant funds employ fewer PMs, or omit the role entirely, with the focus more on the performance of the fund as a whole rather than individual strategies. At some of these funds, quants aren't given visibility into how profitable their strategies actually are, which makes it hard to tell if you are or aren't underpaid. You're also much more susceptible to cuts if you don't have a high ranking PM taking all the scrutiny for trading decisions.

If you prefer the idea of working at a quant fund, there are plenty of options to choose, each with their own idiosyncracies...

Renaissance Technologies

What is it? The original quant fund. Renaissance Technologies was founded in 1982 by Jim Simons, a renowned codebreaker for the US government during the Cold War. It's famously opaque (as are most hedge funds) but is famous for its employees-only Medallion Fund, which is thought to have generated returns of more than 60% on average for a 30+ year period. Major hedge funds rarely exceed 30%, even in a good year. There has been a fall off in recent years, however; in October 2025, its public funds posted 15% losses but bounced back with double digit returns in November for returns of ~2% each. The medallion fund performance was not disclosed, but 60% returns seem unlikely.

Who does it hire? The culture at 'RenTech' is largely academic. As of November 2025 Institutional Investor reported that it employed ~300 people, of whom ~90 were PhDs. CEO Peter Brown told Goldman Sachs in 2023 that the fund explicitly targets people with "no background in finance and no connections with Wall Street." Some of its longest serving employees (according to LinkedIn) have joined from research labs like CERN, or joined fresh out of university. The fund makes exceptions though; Ed Hubner, RenTech's head of risk controls, spent a decade as a credit trader in banking before joining in 2012.

How much does it pay? Salaries at RenTech aren't particularly impressive. The maximum base salary on offer in current open job listings is $235k for systems administrator and network engineering roles. Salaries for a 'real-time trading programmer' are only up to $191k. It's not clear exactly what the fund pays in bonuses, but the real money is made through an investment into the 'Renaissance Kaleidoscope Fund;' this is a fund that employees are allowed to invest in which itself invests money across Renaissance's various funds, including the Medallion Fund. This used to be particularly profitable when the medallion fund was returning 60%, but may be less lucrative today if RenTech's private funds have performed similarly to its public ones.

Qube Research & Technologies (QRT)

What is it? While RenTech is one of the most established quant funds, Qube is the fastest rising new entrant. It was founded in 2016 by a group of quants from Credit Suisse and operated somewhat modestly until the early 2020s when it ballooned in size. QRT has been described as 'utterly French' and is one of the quant funds that give traders limited visibility on their performance.

Who does it hire? Bloomberg reported in February Qube has grown headcount to more than 1,400 as of last December. It has at least 15 major offices, including its recently opened New York office. Having come from Credit Suisse, you might be unsurprised to find that Credit Suisse is the most common former employer of current QRT staff. It predominantly hires banking alumni, but has broadened its remit in recent years, hiring from electronic trading firms like Hudson River Trading and rival hedge funds like Eisler Capital (RIP).

How much does it pay? In its flagship London office, Qube paid an impressive £722.3k ($969k) in 2024 according to a filing with Companies House, but pay is not distributed evenly. Since staff get limited visibility on their PnL, Qube pays bonuses on a discretionary basis. While other hedge funds pay staff up to 20% of PnL generated, Qube staff made unconfirmed allegations early last year that their pay might be close to 3%. Three quarters of bonuses are also allegedly deferred over a three year period, but they're also invested into the fund during that time. This makes them even more valuable, but makes it harder to leave.

D.E. Shaw

What is it? Arguably the most recognizable quant fund. D.E. Shaw is another industry veteran. It was founded in 1988, a few years after RenTech, but its website says it has a headcount more than ten times the size of it. D.E. Shaw was also the most rewarding employer in our ideal employer rankings and came second for company culture, ahead of RenTech and behind only Millennium.

Who does it hire? D.E. Shaw has one of the most robust and respected internship programs in the hedge fund space, which it uses to develop a large portion of its talent. Harvard is the most common university for current D.E. Shaw employees according to LinkedIn, followed by Yale and MIT. It has a number of side ventures beyond its hedge fund; there's a research arm building a biotech supercomputer, a private credit fund, a venture studio and a fully fundamental hedge fund.

How much does it pay? D.E. Shaw lists salaries of up to $350k for open roles in its New York office but bonuses can take your pay much higher. In its UK entity, average compensation was over $1m for the year ending March 2025, despite profit being down 57% year on year. DE Shaw's internships are also some of the most well-paid in the hedge fund space, offering up to $25k per month in addition to a $20k signing bonus according to Levels.fyi. A 2025 court case revealed that, if you rise the ranks to partner level, you can make as much as $40m per year, but this came with allegations that D.E. Shaw's contracts allow the fund to withhold pay if you don't absolve the fund of legal liability for a given period of time.

Two Sigma

What is it? Once regarded as the 'chillest place to work' in quant finance, Two Sigma is currently going through changes. After a lengthy conflict between its two founders, David Siegel and John Overdeck, the fund brought in new co-CEOs. One has already been replaced. All this hasn't hampered Two Sigma's performance; its flagship Absolute fund was up ~13% last year, and the fund was reportedly outperforming major multistrat rivals in the early months of the year.

Who does it hire? Two Sigma also has a robust early careers program, and is currently hiring for both machine learning engineers and AI researchers. Popular schools for Two Sigma staff are Columbia, MIT and New York University. For experienced staff, Two Sigma hires from various sources including banking and prop trading. Earlier this year it hired Francesco Maria Della Fave, EMEA applied AI lead at Goldman Sachs, while Christopher Panek, an ex-junior partner at Optiver, joined as an MD and head of index options market making.

How much does it pay? The average salary at Two Sigma, based on H1B Visa salary submissions since the start of 2025, is ~225k. The average total compensation in its UK entity, meanwhile, was $500k in its most recent accounts released on Companies House for 2024. One ex-quant at Two Sigma, Jian Wu, went viral for allegedly receiving a $23m performance-based bonus in 2023; he was released from the fund, however, and subsequently indicted for securities fraud. 

AQR Capital Management

What is it? The quant fund of Cliff Asness, one Goldman Sachs' quant pioneers . He joined the bank in 1992 and became an MD in its asset management division, but left to found AQR with fellow alumni of the University of Chicago's PhD program. Asness said on a podcast in 2024 that the culture at AQR reflects both Goldman and UoC; your work will be rigorously peer-reviewed and, if its good enough, you can be inducted into its lucrative partnership.

Who does it hire? You'd likely be unsurprised to find that the most common university among AQR staff is the university of Chicago, followed by Columbia and NYU. It has another large internship program, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, rather than New York. 

How much does it pay? H1B visa salary data since 2025 suggests that the average salary at AQR is $161k, but you can earn much more than that. Pay in AQR's UK entity, for example, was $653k while its partners earned $2.2m according to filings for 2024 on Companies House. 

Capital Fund Management

What is it? Another French quant fund growing at a blistering pace. 'CFM' reportedly added $10bn to its AUM over the past year, nearly doubling its size, despite operating with a modest headcount of 450 (as of December 2025). It has a monolithic,  transparent and academic culture, which gives CFM has remarkably low turnover rate according to its executives..

Who does it hire? PhDs... a lot of them. Business Insider reported last June that CFM has over 100 researchers, who are predominantly PhDs, and makes a habit of hiring ~15 new PhDs every year. As you might expect of a French hedge fund, many of those PhDs come from the Grandes Écoles. When hiring experienced staff you'll be unsurprised to find CFM prefers staff from French banks. For example, SocGen distinguished engineer Sébastien Brasseur joined in November as the head of its prediction platform.

How much does it pay? CFM appears to be at the lower end of the pay spectrum. Its UK accounts filed with Companies House showed an average pay of $369k in 2024, albeit for just 11 people, while H1B visa disclosures since 2025 in its growing New York office suggest an average salary of $136k. It's enough to keep its researchers happy; CFM said many of them stay working there for more than a decade.

Honorable Mention: Jane Street

Jane Street is not a hedge fund, not fully at least. It's one of the many electronic trading firms that have exploded onto the scene and generated record breaking revenues. Many of these firms are 'prop trading' firms, meaning that they only manage their own money, but they've begun to increasingly operate like hedge funds... and hire from them.

For example, these funds used to predominantly operate in the high-frequency space, but have since incorporated more mid-frequency and long-term strategies. At the same time, major hedge funds have built out their own market making teams (like Two Sigma's 'Two Sigma Securities') Or established sister firms to directly compete, like Citadel Securities. 

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