HFTs pay ₹60 lakh for 2-month internships

High-frequency trading firms in India are dramatically increasing intern pay to attract top engineering talent, with Quadeye offering ₹60 lakh for a two-month stint, four times last year's package. Graviton Research Capital has tripled its offer to ₹50 lakh, while global players IMC and Optiver are matching with ₹50-60 lakh packages. The bidding war comes as firms face a shortage of experienced quant talent and tighter derivatives regulations squeeze profits, pushing them to hire and train young engineers from campuses. This signals intense competition for quantitative skills in India's financial technology sector. Key signal: Quadeye is offering ₹60 lakh for a two-month internship, four times its offer a year earlier. For hiring leaders, this matters because for CHROs and TA leaders, this is a wake-up call on the escalating cost of niche technical talent. The HFT sector is setting a new benchmark for intern compensation that will ripple across tech hiring, especially for data science and algorithmic roles. Companies outside HFT will need to reassess their compensation strategies to compete for the same pool of elite engineering graduates. The trend also highlights the growing importance of campus hiring and early talent development as a response to lateral shortages, a strategy that could be adopted more broadly. Teksands view: This is a classic case of supply-demand gone wild. HFTs are fighting over a handful of IIT/IIIT grads who can build models that make millions. For everyone else, don't panic. Your hiring strategy shouldn't be to outbid HFTs—it's to find the next tier of talent and train them up. The real takeaway is the shift to campus hiring and early development. If you're not investing in internships and university partnerships, you're missing the boat.