Use math, statistics and code to find patterns in markets and build the models that trade on them.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$250,000
New graduate
$150,000
Senior researcher
$660,000
Total pay, salary plus bonus. Graduate base salaries filed for work visas run $150,000 to $300,000 at trading firms. Quant researchers at Two Sigma report about $485,000 to $661,000 a year on Levels.fyi. Quants at banks usually earn less than at trading firms.
$150,000 to $300,000 base
From public H-1B (US work visa) salary filings, 2025
Optiver filed $150,000 for quant researchers in Chicago. Citadel Securities filed a median of $250,000 for quant researchers. Jane Street filed $300,000 for most traders and engineers. A yearly bonus comes on top.
Not guaranteed, and it can rival the salary
Paid once a year, based on how you and the firm did
Trading firms add a yearly bonus tied to results, which in a good year can be as large as the base. A bad year can mean a small bonus or a layoff. The BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) puts quants in the broad financial and investment analyst group, which includes many other jobs, with a median of $102,740.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a four year math, statistics, computer science or physics degree at in-state public rates, which is enough for many trading and developer jobs. The high end adds a one year master's in financial engineering, such as Berkeley's at about $92,000 in tuition and fees. A PhD costs more years but usually no tuition: most science PhD students in the US are funded and paid a small stipend.
File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). For trading roles, a strong bachelor's degree is enough; the expensive master's is mainly a route for career changers.
Very high pay early
Few jobs pay this much to people under 25.
Smart colleagues
Teams are full of mathematicians, physicists and programmers.
Free food and perks
Many trading firms feed staff and pay for training and travel.
Pressure to perform
Your models make or lose real money, and results are measured every day.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Quant is three jobs: researcher, trader and developer. The path depends on which.
High school
Grade 12
The most advanced math you can take, plus programming. Math contests help a lot.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Math, statistics, computer science, physics or engineering, at a school trading firms recruit from.
Internships
1 to 2 summers
Firms hire most new staff from summer interns. Applications open about a year ahead.
Master's or PhD, for researchers
1 to 6 years
Many research roles want a PhD in a quantitative field. Traders and developers often start after a bachelor's.
First quant job
1 to 2 years
Months of training, then your own models or trades under close watch.
Quant researcher
Finds patterns in data and builds models that predict prices. Often has a PhD.
Quant trader
Makes fast decisions on prices and risk, often market making. Often hired after a bachelor's.
Quant developer
Writes the fast code that runs the trading systems, usually in C++ or Python.
Bank quant
Prices complex products and measures risk at a bank. Steadier, and usually paid less.
Calculus and statistics
Probability is the core of every interview and every model.
Computer science
You will write code every day, in any of the three roles.
Physics
Many quants are former physicists. It trains you to model messy systems.
Math contests
Competitions such as the AMC (American Mathematics Competitions) are a real signal on an application.
Most quant researchers and developers need no licence. Traders who place orders at a broker-dealer usually must register through FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority): the SIE (Securities Industry Essentials) exam plus the Series 57 securities trader exam, which your firm sponsors and pays for after you are hired. The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) sets the market rules your models must follow.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Fast, accurate mental math
Some firms start with a timed arithmetic test: 80 questions in 8 minutes is the one candidates report from Optiver.
Probability puzzles
Dice, cards and betting games, solved out loud.
Strong coding
Python for research, C++ for speed.
Contest or research results
Math olympiads, programming contests, published papers.
Machine learning
Used more and more for finding signals in data.
A trading or betting game habit
Poker and strategy games teach thinking in odds, and interviewers like to ask about them.
Statistics done properly
Knowing when a pattern is real and when it is luck.
Calm under pressure
Interviews are built to see how you think when stuck.
Videos make quant look like a secret code to getting rich from your bedroom. Real quant work needs huge data, fast systems and a firm's money; strategies sold online as quant bots are not the same thing. And the famous starting salaries are real but rare: the top firms hire small classes of graduates from very large applicant pools.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Traders arrive before the market opens to check overnight moves and risk. During trading hours they watch their systems, adjust prices and step in when something breaks. Researchers spend the day testing ideas on years of data, and most ideas fail. Developers fix and speed up code, where a millionth of a second can matter. Afternoons end with a review of what made and lost money.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
In 2025 work visa filings, Jane Street listed a base salary of $300,000 on 32 of its 48 filings in New York, for traders and engineers alike.
Jane Street has published a new math puzzle on its website every month for years, and lists the people who solve it.
Candidates describe Optiver's first test as 80 arithmetic questions in 8 minutes, no calculator, with points taken off for wrong answers. The firm has never published the format.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Money and finance first, then the rest of the field. See all business and money careers.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise.