Point72 Employee Reviews about "cubist"

Pros

the name of the firm carries a lot of weight. recommended to those newbies or those offered a role in PM teams you will be indeed exposed to a variety of 'stuff' if you are new to this industry

Cons

High turnover rate in the cubist central teams in Singapore. FACTs observed in SG cubist (mainly data team): 2019 to as of now Feb 2020, 6 ppl left due to various reasons with lengths of stays averaged to less than 2 years within "central teams" with less than 20 ppl. 5 of them left without even securing the next jobs. Political in the cubist central team: You could be offered a package to leave after speaking up to management.

Pros

Well known company, on wsj quite often.

Cons

I usually don't like to express negative views, but I fell obligated to write this review. Hope it can help people who is considering joining this firm. The quant arm of Point 72 used to call Cubist Systematic Strategy. Seems they removed the name, now people can no longer find info on Glassdoor (try to think why they do that? ) The company has two relative independent businesses: fundamental ( Point 72) and quantitative ( Cubist ). I don't know much about fundamental side, but I can say a few things about Cubist: It is no a fun place to work. Cubist is organized as many small PM teams, there is no sharing among teams, even within the team people don't share ideas. Don't expect to learn any thing, instead of contributing your alphas/ideas. In general, I think some PM teams are hiring people to get trading algos from him/her, instead of trying to grow with this person and help him/her become successful. Unless you plan to join as a PM, or one of the core member in the PM team is your uncle, please seriously consider other options. For more junior entering this field, consider other bigger places like two sigma/citadel, where you can actually learn something.

Pros

One of the most compelling reason for any Quant PM /Researcher to pick Cubist is the quality and variety of data. Data Services team is highly proficient at Cubist and they go extra mile in making sure that the data you need is delivered to you in an easy to use format. Most of the Data team analysts are very smart and have a graduate degree in Computer Science/Statistics or relate d fields. Also, the team has put in a lot of hard work in documenting data and also becoming familiar with the data as a Subject Matter Experts to answer detailed data related questions. Data related support is 24/7 and thus there are not many data related production outages. Another important differentiating factor is many datasets have been collected PIT in-house and thus not available at other places. While I was at Cubist, I was able to get access to pretty much all the data sources which were mentioned in academic literature and more.

Cons

I stayed with the firm over a decade and can't think of any negatives about the place. Probably there is a room for improving snacks in the Pantry

Pros

Cubist is extremely selective in it's recruiting. The vast bulk of hires are lateral, with a handful of PhDs and masters students hired each year. The quality of colleagues is extremely high, and people honestly try hard to be collaborative and help one another. Employees' experiences can vary greatly across different PM teams and support functions: Each PM team is free to be entrepreneurial, and each team pursues a different set of strategies with a different management approach based on the interests and expertise of the PM and members of the team. Support functions have different skillsets and cultures: for example, the talent team doesn't code, the data team tends to hire relatively less experienced people and train them up from scratch (eventually many of them move on to join PM teams). Management is focused on the career path of the individual. While some PM teams do not meet the firm's bar for performance, the firm always seems to take steps to provide opportunities for a better fit internally, and it seems like in the vast majority of such cases people opt to take internal opportunities. The firm provides a "target rich" environment for research, with a vast archive of datasources, ideas, and other resources. As a major client of most sell-side firms, Point 72 and Cubist have access to all the resources that the street can offer.

Cons

The average PM team is small in headcount. While this means that each person on the team can have high impact, it also means that sometimes teams cannot pursue resource-intensive highly speculative projects. People generally agree that the culture of Cubist is pretty distinct from the rest of Point72, which is not a surprise as Cubist employees tend to lean towards PhDs in Computer Science and Statistics, wheras the rest of the firm is populated disproportionately by MBAs. There are quantitative functions on the discretionary side of the firm, but they are limited and in many cases fairly secretive. Cubist offers most staff a lot of autonomy, but it's hard work. Senior executives are "always on" and by extension many teams expect high intensity work and output from their colleagues. It is fairly rare for a researcher on a team to subsequently spin out and become a PM. This is understandably discouraged, since the PM teams want to have some comfort that their IP lies within the team.

Pros

Great shop. As an independent PM, you'll have full autonomy over your investment process and will be treated like a grown-up when it comes to risk. You are given all the tools and support to help your business succeed: -> QBIZ team (cubist business) will help you launch new strategies, trade new securities, etc. by liaising with brokers/venues/other parts of the firm, account set up, etc. Everything is very streamlined and you can tell they've done this many times before. -> ingestion of new data sets is a priority and they do a good job of it with a steady stream of new data sets announced every week. The data team is very responsive. -> Ross will (to a large extent) let you set the tone of his involvement in your business. He offers lots of ideas on research and risk management if you are receptive to it. Also helps you to focus on the business/management aspect. -> Most of all I'm impressed with the culture: senior management is always asking what we can do better and is receptive to feedback (both good and bad).

Cons

The non-equity space lags the equity space in terms of set up and infrastructure, but cubist is aware of this and is working on catching up. There is little in the way of centralization of real-time market data feeds, utilities/tools for trade monitoring, etc. as the expectation is that you will build these yourself (this could be a pro/con depending on your point of view).

Pros

easy to commute, near to grand central train station, easy to commute to CT,NY,NJ

Cons

This is probably one of the worst firm to work for, full of arrogant management, it is clear why this firms name comes up for all the wrong reasons. Most of the people working here are either unable to find employement else where as a result of the image and brand value out on the street. The reason SAC Capital was renamed to Point72 after the scandal was to restore a big ego and image of a fraudster, most of the star traders and portfolio managers have already left the firm. The quant business under the name of Cubist is a joke, the employees of this firm do everything very secretly to the extent of stupidity and irrelevent repetitive man hours being spent on irrelevant projects. My advise would be to avoid this firm altogether as it can really me a career diminishing move given this firms image our on the street.