Recent graduates can earn annual salaries in the millions.
Many may have first heard of "quantitative funds" through companies like Huafang Quantitative, associated with DeepSeek. However, in the "money never sleeps" world of Wall Street, there is another more low-profile yet equally formidable player—Jane Street.
According to foreign media reports, over the past year, Jane Street generated approximately $39.6 billion in trading revenue, surpassing traditional financial giants such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs in scale, making it a rare phenomenon in Wall Street history.
The company employs around 3,500 people. With an estimated profit margin of 65% to 70%, the per capita profit ranges from $8 million to $9 million. Among companies with over 1,000 employees, almost none can match this figure. For comparison, Citadel Securities, the world's largest market maker, reports a per capita profit of about $3.6 million, while another top global quantitative trading firm, Hudson River Trading (HRT), achieves around $6.6 million. Even the highly sought-after NVIDIA has a per capita profit of only about $2.9 million. Reflecting this in employee compensation, the figures are even more staggering. Last year, the company paid out $9.38 billion in salaries, averaging approximately $2.68 million per employee.
After this bombardment of wealth data, the question arises: How exactly does this company achieve this? And who can become part of it?
Recent Graduates Can Earn Annual Salaries in the Millions
Using per capita figures to measure a company's compensation level might be misleading, so I looked at some job postings on the official website.
Jane Street's job openings target both experienced professionals and current students or recent graduates. For roles such as quantitative traders and researchers, the base salary is $300,000, with total compensation including annual bonuses.
Most discussions about Jane Street online revolve around its generous compensation package. Compared to its peers, it is considered a "ceiling-level" standard.
However, earning such a high salary requires exceptional talent. A former Jane Street trader explicitly stated in an interview that these institutions recruit based on raw talent rather than existing knowledge. For example, individuals who have experience making decisions under uncertainty and bearing the economic consequences of those decisions. Others, even if highly intelligent, excellent at mathematics, or skilled at problem-solving, may quickly leave if they do not enjoy trading. "In trading, you ultimately have to make money."
Jane Street's interview process is generally divided into two stages: the first is a phone interview, and the second is an on-site interview. The final interview includes various types of questions, which may involve problem-solving, probability and statistics, programming, data analysis, and personal interests. All interviews are conducted by the company's quantitative traders, who ask a range of questions to assess candidates.
Experienced candidates have summarized common reasons for rejection: overconfidence and silent thinking. Jane Street strongly emphasizes thinking out loud, and quiet contemplation is a major taboo. Additionally, refusing to place bets—for example, being given an opportunity to act as a market maker but declining—is seen as "unwillingness to take risks." Moreover, when stuck in a bad position, interviewers may deliberately offer extremely unfavorable quotes. Accepting these in a panic proves the candidate should not be hired.
Some recall their interview experiences at Jane Street with a touch of dark humor. A candidate and an interviewer agreed to meet at Fulton Street in the financial district, near the Bank of America ATM next to the World Trade Center. The interviewer then took them on the A subway line toward Central Park. They played chess on the subway, but without a board—everything was verbal. A coin toss decided the opening move, and if no winner was determined by 59th Street Columbus Circle, they switched to blitz chess, continuing until Central Park. The candidate lost at Times Square station.
Starting from Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan, taking the New York City A subway line north to Central Park covers a distance of approximately 10 kilometers (about 6 miles), with a total travel time of 20 to 30 minutes. Among these stops, 59th Street Columbus Circle is a landmark station at the southwest corner of Central Park, about 20–25 minutes from Fulton Street by subway, meaning the game would end in the last five minutes or so. The candidate lost at Times Square, which is about a 10-minute subway ride from Fulton Street, meaning they lost halfway through the "game."
It may be hard to imagine how to sustain high-intensity memory, calculation, and decision-making in such an environment—without a board, in a noisy setting, and with limited time. Yet, these are precisely the core competencies required in quantitative trading.
Company Operates Without a CEO
In addition to high salaries, Jane Street's corporate culture is highly appealing to employees. Once hired, few are laid off, a level of stability that is unique in the financial industry.
The Financial Times once described it with a compelling phrase: "an extremely profitable anarchist commune." Unlike the traditional top-down hierarchical system of Wall Street, Jane Street adopts a partnership structure without a typical pyramid management. The company's core consists of about 30 to 40 senior members who make decisions collectively, operating through management and risk committees. Together, they hold approximately $24 billion in company equity, overseeing different trading desks and business lines. However, they never refer to themselves as "presidents," and the company does not have a strict CEO.
A senior hedge fund quantitative analyst noted that Jane Street is a trader's world, while Citadel Securities is more suited for quantitative analysts and developers. "Jane Street is trader-oriented, while Citadel Securities is more systematic," he explained. "Traders are more sociable, which is why Jane Street has a relaxed atmosphere and a strong poker culture."
In terms of incentives, the company also breaks conventions. Some employees can invest in the company's own funds, and as long as they do not join a competitor after leaving, these investments remain valid. This design strengthens long-term commitment while reducing the incentive for short-term mobility.
Even more contrasting is the company's avoidance of non-compete agreements. On Wall Street, this is an almost "counterintuitive" choice. Currently, the company is accelerating its global expansion. The London office plans to double in size, while efforts in core markets like New York and Hong Kong continue to intensify. Among these, a new lease in Hong Kong's Central district is considered one of the largest office transactions in the city's core business district in recent years.
Jane Street's capital footprint is also noteworthy. Since 2016, the company's proprietary capital has grown by nearly 2000%, reaching approximately $45 billion. It is not only active in traditional markets but has also begun deeply engaging in the AI field. For example, as a significant investor in Anthropic, it has participated in multiple rounds of funding. With Anthropic's valuation continuing to rise, this investment has yielded substantial returns. Additionally, the company has invested an additional $1 billion in CoreWeave and signed a $6 billion computing power cooperation agreement.
According to public information, CoreWeave will provide cross-data-center computing resources, including support based on NVIDIA's next-generation architecture, to facilitate the training and scaling of its AI models. These actions, to some extent, outline Jane Street's evolution from a "quantitative trading firm" to a "computationally intensive fintech platform."
Reshaping Wall Street
Despite its astonishing profitability, Jane Street has been accompanied by controversy since its inception.
The story dates back to 1999 in New York. Three traders from Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and a programmer from IBM co-founded the company. Due to significant overlap in core members, SIG once filed a lawsuit alleging "theft of proprietary information and poaching of key talent." However, the case never reached a substantive ruling and gradually faded from public view.
To some extent, this experience shaped the company's "controversial" character.
The company was initially registered as "Henry Capital," starting with ADR (American Depositary Receipt) business. This line of work, which involves mapping foreign company stocks to the U.S. market, is not particularly glamorous. In theory, its price should align with the original stock, but due to time zone differences, exchange rate fluctuations, and information delays, slight and temporary price discrepancies often arise. The four founders capitalized on these "gaps," leveraging algorithms and speed to secure certain profits.
In August 2000, Henry Capital was renamed Jane Street, and the company underwent a critical transformation: shifting its focus to ETFs (exchange-traded funds), which were still a niche product at the time.
Similar to ADRs, the ETF market at the time had limited liquidity and few participants, with little interest from large institutions. However, this "lack of attention" made it an ideal ground for arbitrage. Market-making is the core of this system. Market makers must simultaneously quote bid and ask prices, ready to trade at any moment, accumulating profits from tiny price differences. This sounds simple but requires millisecond-level pricing decisions, managing substantial inventory risks, and maintaining continuous operations across global markets.
Speed and accuracy happen to be Jane Street's strengths. Over the past two decades, the ETF market has grown from hundreds of billions to tens of trillions of dollars, with institutions, retail investors, and even pension funds continuously pouring in. Besides Jane Street, other players in the same ecosystem, such as Citadel Securities and Susquehanna International Group, have also risen rapidly during the ETF expansion cycle, having long focused on electronic market-making and quantitative trading. Simultaneously, a new generation of global elites has emerged, capable of understanding complex financial structures and driven by technological prowess. These individuals are gradually replacing some of the traditional, suit-clad Wall Street traders.
In recent years, controversy surrounding Jane Street has centered on its entry into the cryptocurrency market. In February 2024, during litigation related to the liquidation of blockchain firm Terraform Labs, the company was accused of trading using insider information and profiting from it, thereby exacerbating the collapse of the crypto ecosystem built by Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon. However, these allegations remain highly disputed and unresolved.
The company's specific operations in the cryptocurrency market, much like its path to accumulating massive profits in traditional markets, are largely unknown. In July 2025, Jane Street was accused by Indian securities regulators of alleged market manipulation in its trading strategies. The company denied the allegations and was allowed to resume trading in the Indian market after depositing approximately $564 million in related funds into an escrow account.
However, it is certain that Jane Street's commitment to the cryptocurrency market is unwavering, and it is not the only player of its kind. Many quantitative institutions have actively positioned themselves in the crypto market. Cross-exchange price differences and dispersed liquidity have at times created arbitrage opportunities as high as 10%, far exceeding those in traditional financial markets.
Jane Street's response to this has been relatively direct: "We have always participated in trading in a thoughtful manner and will continue to do so. As more crypto products emerge, we look forward to participating in them."
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