Hedge Fund Pays NYC Interns $20,000 a Month on Average, Sent to Lavish Florida Kickoffs Citadel is known for its opulent events and company retreats.
By Emily Rella
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
For most interns trying to make it in New York, the opportunity to network with top executives doesn't exactly come with the gig.
But for interns at investment management company Citadel, the perks — like a $5,000 weekly salary and rent fully paid — can rival most full-time jobs.
Citadel's 300 summer interns began their 11-week-long stint with luxurious kick-offs at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, where they'll attend information sessions and hear from top leadership (including CEO Ken Griffin) as well as "participate in a deep-dive quantitative trading simulation," according to a report by Insider.
"We give our interns really exceptional, difficult projects — ones that we would otherwise give to employees," head of campus recruiting at Citadel, Matt Mitro, told the outlet. "The solutions that they design are tested by our teams with the same kind of rigor as the way we test our own employees, and very frequently those projects go into production."
The New York Post reported that Citadel interns are given free corporate housing where they are interning, including expensive cities such as New York, London, Hong Kong, or Miami.
According to Levels.FYI, a salary tracker, Citadel interns located in New York City for the summer are earning up to an average of $120 per hour ($20,800 a month, $5,200 per week) in addition to free housing, free food while working.
Interns can also garner a $20,000 signing bonus should interns decide to sign on full time at the end of the summer, per eFinancialCareers.
For comparison, RentHop reported that the average rent for a studio apartment in New York City for June 2023 was $3,300 per month — nearly $2,000 less than Citadel interns are making per week — not like they care since their rent is comped for the 11-week internship program.
Citadel, which is run by CEO Ken Griffin, is known for its lavish company culture with opulent retreats.
Last December, Griffin shut down Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and paid for 10,000 of his employees to celebrate the holidays there for three days. The trip was completely comped for all and included a private Coldplay concert.
Citadel saw a massive $16 billion gain by the end of 2022, the largest ever by any hedge fund in the U.S.
Griffin's net worth is an estimated $36.9 billion according to Bloomberg.
