Pros
- Collaborative culture with teammates who are happy to see you - Fresh graduates who are willing to take on responsibility and enjoy wearing many hats can grow very quickly, becoming junior portfolio managers within 12-18 months. - Possible to maintain a work/life balance; 50-60 hours/week generally expected - Decent tech stack with availability to work with extremely high-quality data
Cons
- Firm has low AUM for the size of headcount, making it hard to be profitable. This means that bonuses are much lower than competition, even when your team does well. - There is no discussion of a broader meaning/purpose/impact to the work; if the goal is to make money and the firm isn't profitable, what is the point? - Senior management has no work/life boundaries, and rewards hard work with more work. The CEO almost never takes a day off, and generally is happiest when people are pulling long hours. - Recruiting has been from a narrow funnel; many teams communicate in Russian. There is no discussion of diversity issues, and there are occasional reminders of the background bigotry which pervades much of finance.