Citadel Software Engineer Compensation
Covers Citadel (hedge fund) and Citadel Securities (market maker). No equity - base + P&L-linked bonus. Routinely beats big-tech total comp by 40-60% in cash.
Ranges aggregated from publicly-available sources. Treat the median (p50) as roughly representative; quartile bands reflect negotiation range. Have specific data points or corrections? Send them in.
Company-specific notes
These bands cover both Citadel (the hedge fund) and Citadel Securities (the market maker) - they are separate firms under common ownership and recruit separately. Citadel Securities engineering, especially low-latency C++ and market-data roles, generally pays at the top of each band; Citadel hedge-fund platform engineering clusters around the medians. There is no equity: comp is base plus a discretionary, P&L-linked bonus, with amounts above roughly $1M typically deferred over multiple years (reflected in the near-zero equityAnnual bands). Year-to-year variance is the highest in this dataset - a strong year at Citadel Securities can double the numbers shown.
Levels
New Grad
Software Engineer (New Grad)| Component | p25 | p50 | p75 | p90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $200K | $225K | $250K | $275K |
| Equity (annualized) | $0 | $2K | $5K | $10K |
| Bonus / sign-on amortized | $150K | $200K | $275K | $375K |
| Total comp | $350K | $425K | $530K | $660K |
Entry-level. Citadel Securities new-grad offers (especially low-latency C++ roles) typically land at the top of this band; Citadel hedge-fund engineering offers cluster around p50.
Mid
Software Engineer| Component | p25 | p50 | p75 | p90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $240K | $265K | $290K | $315K |
| Equity (annualized) | $0 | $5K | $10K | $20K |
| Bonus / sign-on amortized | $250K | $375K | $550K | $800K |
| Total comp | $490K | $645K | $850K | $1.14M |
Mid-level. Citadel aggressively poaches from FAANG at this level and routinely beats big-tech total comp by 40-60% in cash. Expect a demanding performance culture in exchange.
Senior
Senior Software Engineer| Component | p25 | p50 | p75 | p90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $280K | $310K | $340K | $375K |
| Equity (annualized) | $0 | $5K | $15K | $30K |
| Bonus / sign-on amortized | $400K | $620K | $950K | $1.4M |
| Total comp | $680K | $935K | $1.3M | $1.8M |
Senior IC. Low-latency trading systems and market-data engineers at Citadel Securities define the p75-p90 band; enterprise/platform roles at the hedge fund track p25-p50.
Lead
Lead / Senior Lead Engineer (Staff-equivalent)| Component | p25 | p50 | p75 | p90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $320K | $350K | $385K | $425K |
| Equity (annualized) | $0 | $10K | $25K | $50K |
| Bonus / sign-on amortized | $650K | $1M | $1.55M | $2.4M |
| Total comp | $970K | $1.36M | $1.96M | $2.88M |
Staff-equivalent. Bonus is heavily P&L-linked at this level. A portion above ~$1M is often deferred with multi-year vesting (the small equityAnnual band).
Primary sources
- ·Levels.fyi (public reports, Citadel + Citadel Securities data points)
- ·NY Pay Transparency postings (Citadel NYC)
- ·US DOL H1B Disclosure Data (Q4 2025)
- ·Public Citadel / Citadel Securities career-page postings
- ·Blind (anonymous reports, triangulation only)
Cross-referenced against public reporting, state pay-transparency postings, and triangulated where source ranges disagreed. Last refresh: June 2026.
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