Pros
Over my time at Citadel I have taken an internal application from the first line of code into a critical platform for how we manage and access data across the organization. Through this project I was not only an architect and engineer, but also a product manager, user support and salesman. I have learned that this is typical of the most successful engineers at Citadel. In order to succeed you need to not only design systems, but also intimately understand the problems we are solving and how they relate to making money and managing risk. If you cannot incorporate the last two components into the systems you design, you will not be successful. However if you can, there is no ceiling.
I now work in data engineering for the fundamental equities businesses working on problems that enable our investment teams to gain insights from a variety of data sources. We get access to data sets that no one else gets to work with, using cutting-edge techniques with A LOT of compute resources. It force me to work creatively to come up with solutions that I cannot find in a text book or just search for on stackoverflow.
Cons
It is a high pressure environment with a lot of money at stake and that is something that you can feel as an engineer. During earnings season or at the end of a quarter you are keenly aware that there is little room for error or missed deadlines. It does not have an academic relaxed environment that you might find at other quant funds or tech shops. However if you can keep focused in that kind of environment and work with a passion there is no ceiling to your career at Citadel.
