TL;DR
A head of quant or head of research sets a firm's research agenda, builds and leads the research team and decides where research effort and capital go. A head of trading owns live trading performance, risk and the trading team. In smaller firms one leader may cover both.
These are among the highest-impact hires a trading firm makes. Assessment must separate a candidate's own contribution from their previous firm's data, infrastructure and team, and test leadership as rigorously as technical skill.
Key points
- Define whether you need a builder for a new team or a leader to scale an existing one.
- Attributable track record, not headline P&L, is the core of assessment.
- Leadership evidence means people hired, developed and retained, and strategies stopped as well as started.
- Restrictive covenants, deferred compensation and confidentiality dominate the logistics of these moves.
What the role owns
| Area | Head of quant or research | Head of trading |
|---|---|---|
| Strategy | Research agenda and priorities | Trading strategy portfolio and allocation |
| People | Hiring and developing researchers and quant developers | Hiring and developing traders |
| Risk | Research standards, validation and model risk | Position limits, drawdown management, live risk |
| Performance | Signals and strategies delivered out of sample | P&L, execution quality, capacity |
| Collaboration | Engineering priorities for research infrastructure | Coordination with research, technology and compliance |
Builder or scaler?
| Situation | Leader profile that tends to fit |
|---|---|
| New office, strategy or firm | A hands-on builder who can research or trade personally while hiring |
| Existing team that needs to grow | A leader with experience scaling teams, processes and infrastructure |
| Underperforming team | A leader with turnaround experience, willing to stop strategies and reshape the team |
Assessing track record
- Attribution: what did the candidate personally design, decide or lead, and what came from the team or platform?
- Out-of-sample evidence: did strategies continue to perform after launch?
- Risk behaviour: drawdowns, limit breaches and how losses were handled.
- Portability: which data, infrastructure and people did results depend on, and what can legally and practically move?
- Consistency: performance across different market regimes.
Reference conversations with former colleagues, handled discreetly and with consent, are especially valuable at this level.
Assessing leadership
| Evidence | Questions to ask |
|---|---|
| Hiring | Who have you hired, and where are they now? |
| Development | Which researchers or traders did you grow into senior roles? |
| Retention | Who followed you between firms, and who left your teams and why? |
| Judgement | Which strategies did you shut down, and how did you decide? |
| Culture | How do you credit ideas and handle disagreement? |
Designing the process
- Agree the mandate, reporting line, resources and success measures with the firm's leadership.
- Map candidates across trading firms, funds and banks in relevant markets.
- Approach confidentially; senior leaders are highly visible.
- Run in-depth sessions on research or trading approach, leadership and portability.
- Involve key stakeholders early, including technology leaders the hire will depend on.
- Plan covenants, deferred compensation and start dates before the offer.
Compensation structure
Leadership packages commonly include fixed pay, bonus linked to team or firm performance, and sometimes profit share or equity. Candidates often need buyouts for deferred compensation at their current firm. Clear terms on how performance is measured and how resources are committed reduce the risk of a failed hire.
Covenants and confidentiality
Senior quant and trading leaders frequently have non-compete, non-solicitation and garden leave terms, and strict intellectual property obligations. Firms must avoid importing a previous employer's code, data or strategies. Obtain legal advice on covenants before making offers.
Common mistakes
- Hiring on reputation without attribution.
- Underestimating dependency on a previous firm's infrastructure and team.
- Leaving resourcing vague, so the leader cannot deliver what was promised.
- Ignoring non-solicitation terms when planning team hires that follow the leader.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a head of quant and a head of trading?
A head of quant sets research direction and leads researchers and quant developers. A head of trading owns live trading performance, risk and traders. Smaller firms often combine them.
How do firms verify a senior quant's track record?
Firms verify a senior quant's track record through four routes, because a raw Sharpe number proves very little on its own. Detailed discussion of the strategies and the decisions behind them. Evidence that results held out of sample rather than in backtest. Reference conversations with people who saw the work. And an honest assessment of how much of the performance depended on the previous firm's platform, data, execution and capital, which is the question that separates a genuine edge from a good seat.
Can a head of quant bring their team with them?
Only within the limits of their contract. Non-solicitation clauses, and sometimes non-dealing and non-compete terms, commonly restrict a departing head of quant from recruiting former colleagues for six to twelve months. Breaching them exposes both the individual and the hiring firm to litigation, and in this market litigation does happen. Plan the sequence with legal advice before making the first approach, and never discuss a team move during the search itself.
How long does a head of quant search take?
A head of quant search typically runs three to six months from brief to offer, and the start date is usually later still. The search itself is constrained by a small and entirely passive pool. The start date is constrained by garden leave, which can run three to six months at senior level, and by deferred compensation that a candidate may want to vest before resigning. Plan the whole timeline from brief to desk, not just to offer.