Quant exits at Jump Trading
Business Insider reports that two senior quants, Yiming Zhang and Darko Kirovski, left Jump Trading’s Core Strategies group, according to recent posts. The departures were noted as a change in the firm's core research roster. (x.com)
Two senior quants, Yiming Zhang and Darko Kirovski, have left Jump Trading’s Core Strategies group, one of the firm’s most profitable units. (businessinsider.com) Business Insider reported the departures on April 18, and Jump confirmed that Zhang and Kirovski resigned this week. The report said Zhang joined Jump in 2009 and Kirovski in 2011. (businessinsider.com) The two researchers were described as foundational leaders in Jump Core Strategies, the group inside the Chicago trading firm that uses quantitative models to trade markets at high speed. Jump says its business relies on research, trading systems, and global infrastructure built for real-time decisions. (businessinsider.com) (jumptrading.com) Jump has been leaning harder into machine learning, the branch of artificial intelligence that finds patterns in huge data sets, as part of that trading operation. In March, the firm said it was expanding its deep-learning research data center work with NVIDIA and called infrastructure a “strategic capability.” (jumptrading.com) That makes the exits notable inside a private firm that sells itself as a home for mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, and researchers working on “real-world impact in global markets.” Jump’s careers page says it is still hiring across experienced and early-career roles. (jumptrading.com 1) (jumptrading.com 2) Kirovski’s public research profile also shows the kind of academic firepower Jump has recruited into trading. His Google Scholar page lists nearly 9,700 citations and identifies him with a verified Jump Trading email. (scholar.google.com) Business Insider said the timing comes after Jump posted its most profitable quarter in 27 years, with Core Strategies playing a central role in that performance. Jump did not publicly detail the reasons for either departure in the materials reviewed. (businessinsider.com) For now, the clearest change is on the research roster: two long-serving senior quants are out, and one of the industry’s most secretive trading firms is reshuffling a core team while continuing to build around artificial intelligence and high-speed markets. (businessinsider.com) (jumptrading.com)
