We almost always look for people with quantitative, economic and/or maths/science backgrounds. Study abroad for university or masters. We also pay at least 2.5x the local salary with some making 5x - 10x local salaries at different levels.

3. If you really want insist on hiring an assistant, you should consider narrowing and simplifying your criteria. You're not going to magically find someone who is (a) a lowly paid assistant, (b) has financial skills or can pick it up fast, (c) has good IT skills, (d) has the right personality and skillset to deal with statistical problems, (e) is smart - which I gather are your criteria from your post.

Yep, I need a statistics/probability person for sure.

Thanks, your post helps give me some good salary perspective and general affirmation.

I'll be honest. This is a serious concern. A good 'statistics/probability person' has no incentive to stay with you in the long-term for obvious reasons - your pull factor as an employer is probably compensation && (hopefully) decent technology && early opportunity.

Obviously, you can't win 100+ man shops in the first two criteria. As for the last, you have to be careful as the chances are that the person will overvalue the opportunity and come in and be disappointed and leave ultimately.

Now on the other hand, if you are a good 'statistics/probability person' looking to hire a software engineer, there's plenty of fish out there. I always see posts on SO that suggest that a software engineer is trying to build a trading system, I rarely see 'statistics/probability persons' wondering how to build a trading system because that's not as significant of a barrier entry.



@treydog999 is one of the more informed participants in this forum and I respect his views. However, in this particular instance, I disagree with his approach. I believe the mindset towards setting salaries should be the same as the mindset towards pricing options. If you're providing an interesting opportunity, you should discount your salaries. If you're providing a less interesting opportunity, you have to pay a premium.

Usually, my group pays out 60-80% cash/guaranteed bonus as compared to what a mid-tier prop firm (e.g. Allston, Spot) would for the same candidate. The candidates generally still accept the discount factor because they know we have great infrastructure; smarter people that they can work with; and we are presenting better learning opportunities.

In my experience, the only instance where paying a high salary is justified is if you have some kind of bonus lockup scheme or draconian noncompete agreement and you're outbidding your competitors to lock in fresh recruits out of college/grad school and you don't mind paying an extra 60-80% to secure your the talent pool. (It's often fine to carpet bomb and overpay $60-80k for 10 candidates, because there's very good chance that 1 of those 10 candidates will actually make you back $540-720k in his tenure at your firm.)

In your case, I would suggest playing up the opportunity card as much as possible.

Providing that statement with the optionality mindset was really clarifying. I enjoyed that, thanks