Belvedere Trading Reviews

Pros

Was a great place to work at before all the top talent left for better pay Good stepping stone for new developers / fresh graduates to gain experience at before moving to a different company Great work-life balance

Cons

Top talent that have been rearchitecting the system have all left in search of better pay There is no engineering direction as nearly everyone in senior leadership positions is an incompetent holdover from the early days of BT Developers are treated like second-class citizens in comparison to the “moneymaking” traders

Pros

Good benefits/pay/bonus structure. Worked at this company for several years and it had a flat structure with an open door policy where you could share ideas, collaborate on initiatives and be transparent about what is working well or what can be improved.

Cons

Adding hierarchical structure to an org when unnecessary causes people to lose faith in the management team as you have to go through several chains of command to get your point out. Also, if you are in the good books of the mgmt. team and you hang out with them after hours for an outing or a drink, they will promote you regardless of whether or not you are fit for the job role. Watch out for folks that are in the wrong seat and negatively influence the mgmt, team and turn tables against you.

Pros

Great work life balance Subsidized lunch You will never be fired as long as you suck up to the right people.

Cons

Leadership are old school traders who have no idea how modern trading has developed. They also do not listen to outside input and run a boys club, which stifles young talent who brings in quantitative knowledge and new viewpoints. As a result, company growth is very slow which causes the firm to fall further behind its competitors each year. Long-tenured employees are promoted to management positions that they have no expertise about, and end up contributing nothing while micro-managing people who are smarter and know more than they do. In fact, the current CEO knows very little about trading and was simply shoehorned into the position because of tenure. Management sets lofty goals that are never achieved, and keep getting pushed back with no progress. You will also develop no relevant skills/experience here because the trading style is still very much "stare at a screen" or "talk to brokers" all day. All of these factors combined have caused pay at Belvedere to fall far FAR behind the pay for comparable positions at other firms. Don't expect much performance-based compensation -- all additional profits just go to the partners. Belvedere will always overpromise and underdeliver. Belvedere states that it has "unlimited" PTO, but in reality people are pressured to never take time off. It is very common for traders to take less than 10 days of PTO over an entire year. In conclusion, you should only work here if one of the following applies to you: 1) You ONLY care about having good work life balance (7-8 hours per day) and nothing else. 2) You REALLY want to be a trader but could not get an offer at any other trading firm.