Head to head
Jump Trading vs Jane Street
Jump Trading or Jane Street?
Jump Trading is a proprietary trading headquartered in Chicago; Jane Street is a proprietary trading headquartered in New York. On indicative total compensation Jane Street sits roughly 5 percentage points higher against the market median. The larger difference for most candidates is the work itself: high-frequency trading and latency arbitrage at Jump Trading, versus etf market making and options at Jane Street.
| Jump Trading | Jane Street | |
|---|---|---|
| Business model | Proprietary trading | Proprietary trading |
| Headquarters | Chicago | New York |
| Founded | 1999 | 2000 |
| Comp vs market median | +20% | +25% |
| Offices | Chicago, New York, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Sydney, Shanghai | New York, London, Austin, Hong Kong, Singapore, Amsterdam |
| Strategies | High-frequency trading, Latency arbitrage, Crypto, Systematic trading | ETF market making, Options, Statistical arbitrage, Fixed income |
| Hires for | HFT / Low-Latency Engineer, Quant Researcher, Quant Trader | Quant Trader, Quant Researcher, Quant Developer |
| Interview stages | 3 | 4 |
| Typical backgrounds | Embedded and hardware engineering, Physics PhDs, Network engineering | Olympiad mathematics, Competitive programming, Physics and mathematics undergraduates, Poker and games backgrounds |
Compensation by role
Indicative mid-level total compensation, US dollars, New York reference market.
| Role | Jump Trading | Jane Street |
|---|---|---|
| Quant Researcher | $500k | $575k |
| Quant Trader | $550k | $600k |
| Quant Developer | - | $450k |
| HFT / Low-Latency Engineer | $520k | - |
A dash means we hold no indicative figure for that role at that firm. It is recorded as unknown rather than estimated.
Jump Trading
Latency-focused firm with a heavy investment in hardware, networking and FPGA. Notably private about its operations, and a leading destination for low-latency specialists.
Interview process
- 1. ScreenTechnical recruiter and background.
- 2. Technical roundsC++ depth, computer architecture and low-level performance reasoning.
- 3. On-siteSystems design, hardware discussion and team fit.
Jane Street
Known for ETF and options market making at scale, an unusually strong graduate pipeline, and a distinctive engineering culture built around OCaml. Entry-level packages are among the highest in the industry, and the firm hires heavily for probabilistic reasoning rather than finance knowledge.
Interview process
- 1. Screening callRecruiter conversation and background discussion.
- 2. Probability and mental mathsFast-paced expected-value and market-making games.
- 3. Technical roundsAlgorithms, problem solving, and for engineers a strong functional-programming component.
- 4. Final / on-siteMultiple interviewers, trading games, and estimation under time pressure.
Markets where both compete for talent
Other comparisons
Methodology
Figures are expressed as annual total compensation (base salary plus expected performance bonus) in the reference market's local currency, converted from a US dollar base. They describe typical market ranges rather than any individual offer, and exclude sign-on payments, deferred equity and carried interest. Portfolio-manager figures reflect formulaic profit-share arrangements and are therefore far more dispersed than any other role.
KnowQuantIndex 2026.1 · Updated September 2026
Modelled bands describe the market, not an individual offer. Where an employer states pay, the stated figure is used and labelled as such.
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