In the annals of mythical quant pay, there's nowhere quite as generous as hedge fund Renaissance Technologies. After all, founder Jim Simons isn't worth $18bn for nothing.

Needless to say the average employee at Renaissance Technologies isn't Jim Simons. Simons famously made an average of $184k an hour in 2017. Many quants at the fund make less than that in a year, in salary at least.

The chart below shows the salaries 'Ren Tech' is paying quants and engineers it hired for its East Setauket New York office on H1B visas. The fund is known for only hiring a small number of elite researchers, but as ever with the H1B pay figures, the caveat is that this is a small sample that reflects how much is being paid in salary alone to non-U.S. citizens working in a U.S. office.

The data suggests that experienced 'mathematical researchers' (ie. quants) at Renaissance Technologies receive some of the highest salaries at the fund. However, it's worth noting that salary isn't the reason most people want to work for Renaissance. - The real lure is the opportunity to invest in the Medallion Fund, which is only open to employees and has generated returns of about 40% a year since it began in 1988....

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