Citadel engineer leaves for another hedge fund with windier HQ
It’s not hard to convince someone to move to or stay at a hedge fund. It usually takes a bit of money, maybe a promotion, and possibly even a move to Miami. But those carrots – and especially the last one – can’t convince everyone.
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Javier Cardenas joined Balyasny Asset Management last week as a senior engineer, based in Chicago. He came from Citadel, where he spent over 15 years working across the multistrategy hedge fund and market maker Citadel Securities. Cardenas is a platform engineer, and at Citadel worked with Google-designed orchestration system Kubernetes.
Cabernas’ move is not a surprising one to justify. Even though Citadel was our Ideal Hedge Fund Employer in 2024, it’s got one niggle that puts off some people: its obsession with Miami. The fund began moving staff there during the pandemic and even poached the executive chef of the Four Seasons hotel in Palm Beach as a chef. It’s building an “iconic” headquarters there.
The problem is that its old headquarters in Chicago are not universally hated. Although Chicago has its issues and is infamous for its crime rate, some who have built lives there prefer not to move the 1,200 miles to Florida. As Citadel increasingly moves its tech staff to Miami, some are choosing to move to alternative employers in Chicago. For Cardenas - who comes from the Chicago area himself - that includes Balyasny, it seems.
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