Miami hedge funds are finding that Millennium & Citadel have all the talent
If you're a hedge fund, is it worth moving to Miami? That depends on who you ask and who you're hiring. While some portfolio managers want to move there for the sun and the low taxes, others prefer New York or even Dubai. And if you're hiring technologists in Miami, good luck.
As the Miami hedge fund scene matures there is whinging about the talent on offer there. When hedge fund Citadel announced it was moving its headquarters from Chicago to Miami in 2022, the city was dubbed 'Wall Street South.' Millennium's decision to build a technology hub in the city that same year added fuel to the fire. Since then, other hedge funds have been increasing their presence in the city. Balyasny, Schonfeld and even the investment office of Saudi Arabia are building there too, although the focus is often on portfolio managers instead of tech teams.
Miami's draw includes its weather and its low taxes. However, conversations off-the-record with recruiters suggest that the hiring situation isn't quite as sunny as the Miami beachfront when it comes to tech staff.
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A quant headhunter based in New York, speaking anonymously, told us that "Miami is not a tech hub: it has no tech industry to speak of and no elite universities producing top technical talent." This isn't a problem for Citadel and Millennium, which can outmatch rivals for pay in the region and have more robust foundations, but other hedge fund tech teams are struggling to grow.
Headhunters say that some major players who followed Citadel to Miami have already stopped building tech functions there after failing to attract talent. Others are pressing ahead, but relying on the relocation of talent. Another buy-side technology headhunter said high quality tech talent native to Miami is "very rare," and that most technologists working there haven't been in their seats long enough to move on.
Hiring may become even harder if Citadel applies the four year non-competes it's been lobbying for to technologists, although it's not clear that it will do so.
For the moment, the big funds are still sucking up staff. The H1B visa salary database says Millennium hired 32 people in Miami on H1B visas last year. 26 were in technology and paid them an average salary of $104k. The fund had "well over" 200 staff in Miami back in 2023. Citadel and sister firm Citadel Securities employed a combined 400 people in Miami as of January, though it's unclear what proportion of those are in technology.
While the weather might be tempting, pay is less attractive. Last year, 42 total salaries were submitted on the H1B database for employees with the job title of 'Software Engineer' in Miami, at an average salary of $100.4k. You can earn a higher salary as an entry-level engineer for a bank or hedge fund in New York.
Investment staff aren't easy to hire in Miami either. Business Insider reported in January that there were just 180 people performing advisory functions at top hedge funds in Miami. That's five less than Chicago and... 4,193 less than New York.
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