Crypto hedge fund and high-frequency market maker Kbit describes itself as a “growing” team, which may be a bit of a disappointment: After hiring several senior graduates from existing TradFi companies, the fund is apparently looking to more than double its size.
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Kbit claims to have “approximately 12 employees” and 17 open positions. The company is hiring quants, algorithmic trading, DevOps and trade operations engineers in the U.S., London, Hong Kong and Singapore. These are all full-time, on-site positions, but social media data suggests the company has not yet hired any employees in Hong Kong or London.
Judging by the job listings, the work seems surprisingly light: Kbit “essentially has no UI, all development is back-end related to the automated trading system.” The company describes its culture as “casual, scientific, and engineering-focused” with “no bureaucracy whatsoever.”
Kbit's team is packed with veterans from hedge funds, HFT and cryptocurrencies. The company's founder and CEO is Ed Tolson, former director of trading technology at Citadel. CTO/COO Mark Zaitouni spent three years at HFT firm Tower Research Capital as head of product for global trading systems and was also CTO at crypto investment bank Galaxy Digital.
Many people have used crypto to get through parental leave, and Tolson is no exception. But he's staying put. He previously said on a podcast that he started Kbit as a “side project” while on parental leave in 2017. As the price of Bitcoin skyrocketed, Kbit “quickly grew into a full-fledged business.” In January of this year, he announced that he had over $100 million in assets under management.
Now in 2024, Thorson has brought on some big names: Thomas Johnson, a former senior quant developer at Citadel Securities, joined the firm last month as principal research engineer, and in February, Kbit also hired Sean Slotterback, a former PM and head of statistical arbitrage at Tower Research Capital.
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