Usually, around two years after joining Quantlab, the fault lines become more evident. HFT has too much competition and is cyclical--it's widely known that HFT depends on high market volatility and volume. Quantlab almost went bankrupt several times and couldn't find a buyer. The model is mostly the same as when created in the early years of the company. Pretty much any attempt to change the model or trade new asset classes has failed. There is little opportunity to innovate, and this has frustrated Quantlab's Research Scientists for many years. Change of management in the past few years made no improvement in the model--model performance very much depends on market cycles.
The strict 2-year non-compete that all employees must sign upon accepting an offer means employees have to beg to join any other other firm in the trading industry. Most candidates avoid Quantlab because of the 2-year non-competition agreement and the remote location (Houston, not NYC or Chicago). Quantlab has a really hard time attracting talent--nobody wants to move to Houston (HQ), nor be vulnerable working in a remote, satellite office. Most new hires with industry experience came from failed quant trading firms that Quantlab acquired. The results have been mixed, at best.
The best and brightest employees left a while back, mostly by changing industries, at least until their non-competes expired. The employees who remained at Quantlab are *ahem* not exactly the best and brightest--only a few stars are left--it's good to keep in touch with them--and everyone thinks they are the few remaining stars that guide Quantlab's periodic success. Many senior people left, and there is a nasty lawsuit that you can easily look up.
Quantlab always lags behind the technology of its competitors by several years, but pretends to its own employees that it's ahead. This became obvious when we interviewed candidates from competitors.
A truly toxic, passive-aggressive culture, with constant in-fighting and whisper campaigns that undercut people within and across Technology, Research and Trading. It's even worse than one can imagine. Research criticizes the oversized Technology group, because the latter is always very late with deliverables, exposing its incompetence and inadequate testing.
Compensation is far lower than competitors pay. We interviewed many Quant Researchers and Software Engineers at other HFT/quant trading firms, and they were paid much better than Quantlab pays, even after adjusting for taxes and cost of living. No comparison. Quantlab depends on employees' ignorance of competitive compensation and on enforcing its 2-year non-competition agreement (trap). Base salaries vary, depending not on performance or qualifications, but on the whims of senior management. For PERM Labor Certification (Green Card), the notice of filing (NOF), an internal job posting is supposed to be posted for 10 consecutive business days on the company’s physical premises. For years, the company would tape these to the inside of company kitchen cabinet doors, then close the cabinet, so these NOFs were not in plain view. When looking at the details, there was a lot of variation in the base salaries for the same positions, whether comparing recent grads to each other or experienced hires to each other. Also, there are reports that Green Card processing times completed by Quantlab have been shorter durations for some employees than other employees, without a good explanation.
Please note that some of the positive, 5-star reviews of Quantlab were written by some people in senior management, and employees were asked to post these.
Those who can leave (find a comparable job), do. It took some time and planning, but was such a relief to escape!
