Two Sigma engineers working 45 hour weeks for $200k get a wake-up call
Two Sigma, the quantitative hedge fund with $64bn in assets under management, is cutting 10% of its staff or 200 people. The cuts, which were reported earlier by Bloomberg apppear to some of the biggest in the firm's history, far outweighing the two dozen recruiters it let go last October.
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The cuts come after Two Sigma appointed new co-CEOs - Carter Lyons and Scott Hoffman - in August, neither of whom is a quant. They also come after Two Sigma hired Sarah Moore Fass from Bridgwater as chief people officer, joining in March 2025. The ascension of Lyons and Hoffman followed a dispute between the two founders and former CEOs who were once the best of friends, but who came to find each other insufferable.
Headhunters say Two Sigma staff have been waiting for the ax to fall since the change of CEOs, and that it's become easier to extract people from there in recent months. Exits since August include the likes of Ben Robbins, the former SVP of global and Americas RM strategy and insights, and Mihaela Enachescu, a former Goldman Sachs strat who'd worked there since 2015. Mark McNamara, a former SVP of HR, left for Balyasny in September.
Bloomberg says Two Sigma's 200 cuts won't affect its portfolio managers but will instead be focused on people in its corporate, engineering, modeling and trading, and securities units.
Speaking off the record, headhunters are mixed on the calibre of Two Sigma's people. One US quant headhunter, asking to remain anonymous, says the fund has some of the best "alpha and tech talent on the market."
Others, however, are not so sure.
"Two Sigma has many great staff, but also a culture that has been too close to protectionist, so that some very average people have been kept for a long time," says one top London quant headhunter. "These will probably be the people who are going, along with interns in the wrong place at the wrong time. This isn't a fire sale of the good assets."
There have long been signs that people at Two Sigma have things easy. Compensation there is high, even if slightly below some hedge fund rivals, with junior full stack engineers claiming to receive up to $200k on Levelsfyi.
Two Sigma is roundly praised on public forums for being a gently paced place to work. "You can expect 40 - 45 hours as a software engineer," said one (historic) review on Blind. A more recent review from July described it as "good for coasting." More damningly, a September Blind review said the company had a "high tolerance for non-performers."
Not any more, it seems.
Two Sigma declined to comment.
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