Hudson River Trading Software Engineer Compensation
Flat org, no formal levels; Core Developer tenure bands shown. No equity - base + profit-pool bonus. New-grad offers rival Jane Street.
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
HRT is an automated trading firm of roughly 1,000 people with a famously flat structure - there are no formal levels, so the bands here are tenure-inferred. Engineers are 'Core Developers' (systems C++ generalists) or 'Algo Developers' (research-adjacent, on a separate quant ladder not shown). There is no equity: comp is base plus a profit-pool bonus tied to firm performance, so year-to-year variance is large in both directions. The near-zero equityAnnual bands reflect occasional deferred-bonus arrangements at senior tenure, not stock.
Levels
New Grad
Core Developer (New Grad)| Component | p25 | p50 | p75 | p90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $200K | $225K | $250K | $275K |
| Equity (annualized) | $0 | $2K | $5K | $10K |
| Bonus / sign-on amortized | $175K | $250K | $350K | $475K |
| Total comp | $375K | $475K | $605K | $760K |
Among the highest new-grad offers anywhere, rivaling Jane Street. HRT calls generalist engineers 'Core Developers' - the bar is systems-level C++ and the interview leans hard on OS, networking, and performance.
Mid
Core Developer| Component | p25 | p50 | p75 | p90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $240K | $265K | $290K | $315K |
| Equity (annualized) | $0 | $5K | $10K | $20K |
| Bonus / sign-on amortized | $300K | $450K | $675K | $975K |
| Total comp | $540K | $720K | $975K | $1.31M |
Mid-level. Bonus is a percentage-of-pool model tied to firm performance; strong firm years move everyone's number materially.
Senior
Senior Core Developer| Component | p25 | p50 | p75 | p90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $280K | $310K | $340K | $375K |
| Equity (annualized) | $0 | $5K | $15K | $30K |
| Bonus / sign-on amortized | $500K | $775K | $1.18M | $1.75M |
| Total comp | $780K | $1.09M | $1.53M | $2.15M |
Senior IC. HRT is flat - no formal levels - so 'senior' here is tenure- and impact-inferred. Engineers on the live trading path out-earn research-tooling peers.
Lead
Lead Core Developer (Staff-equivalent)| Component | p25 | p50 | p75 | p90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base salary | $320K | $350K | $385K | $425K |
| Equity (annualized) | $0 | $10K | $25K | $50K |
| Bonus / sign-on amortized | $800K | $1.25M | $1.95M | $3M |
| Total comp | $1.12M | $1.61M | $2.36M | $3.48M |
Staff-equivalent. Effectively profit-pool participation. External hires at this tenure are rare and individually negotiated.
Primary sources
- ·Levels.fyi (public reports, HRT data points)
- ·NY Pay Transparency postings (HRT NYC)
- ·Glassdoor aggregated reports
- ·Public HRT 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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