[karmakurtisaani]

Knowing what I know now, I would have jumped ship in your shoes in an instant. After 5 years of that work you could be free from working ever again and do whatever you feel like. I've heard that RT for example can pay you up to 1M per year for entry level, and looking at their profit margins I don't really doubt it.

[ourmandave]

Had to look it up.

The starting salary for a research scientist is $170 - $205K.

https://www.rentec.com/Careers.action?researchScientist=true

[karmakurtisaani]

RT has a yearly return averaging around 40%, and the employees only portfolio averages around 70% per year (at least this was the case a few years ago still). I would imagine the major part of the compensation comes from bonuses and the opportunity to invest in the employees only fund.

170k-200k is not that different from ordinary banks, I can't imagine it's all RT would pay.

Edit: had to look up the annual returns and they seem to be a bit different depending on where you look, so take those numbers with a grain of salt. In any case they're consistently the most profitable hedge fund out there.

[vasco]

At those places the real money is made by being allowed to participate in the employee-only investment funds.