Citadel Securities developers don't need deadlines to work weekends

In investment banking, long hours are usually blamed on managing directors and strict deadlines. At Citadel Securities, employees work long hours out of passion for the job.

Click here to follow our new WhatsApp channel, and get instant news updates straight to your phone 📱

In a recent podcast from electronic marketplace provider Tradeweb, Citadel Securities' head of institutional equity transaction sales, Rob Satzger, says that a "complete buy-in at firm level" is what makes Citadel Securities "unique." 

Satzger said he saw evidence of this when he joined Citadel Securities in 2015 and was setting up its block ETF business:

"We get approval to proceed on Thursday... that evening, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, our development team worked day and night and on Monday we show up in the first beta version of a key aspect of our block business"

Satzger the team worked all weekend because they wanted to: "It wasn't because these developers were under a deadline to deliver, there was no deadline." They were inspired by, "forward-looking leadership on the development side."

Such impassioned self-motivation might be because Citadel Securities affords its non-trading staff more authority than rivals. A senior CitSec quant previously told us "the business developers, lead researchers and the software engineers control the technological stack and have more influence." They also have more visibility over outcomes, incentivizing them to make the extra effort. 

They also have high pay incentivising them. Citadel Securities' recent UK results revealed it paid 170 employees just under $1m per head. 

The hard work seems to be paying off. The firm has generated over $1b in revenue for 14 consecutive quarters. Last year, profits at its UK arm rose by 35%.

Citadel Securities declined to comment.

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: Telegram: @AlexMcMurray, WhatsApp: (+1 269 237 3950). Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com.

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)