Pros: Good for market exposure, cutting-edge engineering.

Cons: Long working hours you cannot imagine.

Pros: Intelligent peers. I worked at both FAANG and Citadel, and I have to say that my peers at Citadel are extraordinarily smart, helpful, and dedicated. Great career growth prospects. I have seen many strong performers get promoted "out of band". People who demonstrate their capabilities are praised, promoted, and compensated. Rewarding. The work and the projects taken here are incredibly fun. Great internal programs. The NXT program gives engineers direct mentorship from the firm's top-level managers and C-level leadership.

Cons: Hard to get in. Interviewers are tough.

Pros: Citadel is packed with extremely talented, extremely driven, and ambitious people. For all that intensity, people are generally personable and good human beings. A lot will be demanded of you, and nearly everything you do will have a clear and immediate impact on your teammates, if not the firm. Work is intensely collaborative. Even on your worst day, you will feel tremendously accomplished. If you like pressure, you will be constantly stretching and growing. The hype is that Citadel is the place to work with the best and be the best, and the reality lives up to it.

Cons: Being the best and being surrounded by the best can be exhausting. Discussions are impassioned, heated, and sometimes combative. It’s great that everyone is so engaged, but nothing is ever easy. Management is very top-down. I’ve never had a job where so much time and energy was expended reporting to and justifying plans and decisions to the various layers of management above, or managing their curiosities and apprehensions. Leadership changes are frequent, and each time a lot of effort goes into bringing the new management up to speed. It seems sometimes that each day brings a new “top” priority.