H1B Visa employees at hedge funds & prop trading firms earn $200k+ in salary alone
Hedge funds and trading firms don't often play the H1B visa lottery, preferring to hire staff already working in the US. Those that do are unlikely to be troubled by Trump's recent executive order mandating a $100k fee for new H1B applications: they pay their H1B visa holders very generously indeed.
We looked at average pay for specific roles at various top paying financial firms on the H1B Visa Salary Database in 2025. We then looked at open job listings at these firms in New York (where salary boundaries are mandatory) to see how H1B pay compares. In many cases, H1B technologists at these firms seem to earn salaries above average.
At hedge fund Two Sigma, for example, the average software engineer on an H1B visa filed in 2025 earns $231k in salary alone. For example, the highest salary offered to one such H1B engineer at Two Sigma this year was $306k, filed in April. Both are generous: the midpoint for jobs currently advertised for Two Sigma software engineers in New York is $221k.
Jane Street, the electronic trader and market maker, paid its H1B software engineers $300k salaries on average in 2025. Most currently open engineering jobs at the firm either list a flat $300k salary or pay between $200k and $300k.
Interestingly, H1B software engineers appear to be earning higher salaries than H1B quant researchers. In multiple firms, including Millennium and Two Sigma, engineers earn higher salaries on average than quant researchers, but this might be because researchers have higher bonus potential.
Hedge funds don't like applying for H1Bs due to the uncertainty of the lottery system; instead, they like to hire staff from tech firms with comparatively massive headcounts who can more easily afford to lose that lottery. Hedge funds' H1B hires, therefore, are more likely to be proven, experienced, and more technically capable.
Things may soon change, however. The recently introduced $100k application fee for new H1Bs will prevent many firms from applying for these H1Bs, while a proposed change to the lottery system biasing large wages could benefit them even further. Of course, it could also make tech firms try to retain their H1B talent more aggressively too...
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