At some firms, newly hired engineers spend their first two weeks in lengthy onboarding meetings, leaving little time to make an impact. But for new engineers at Citadel, these first two weeks are a career gamechanger.
The firm believes that there’s no better way to get up to speed than to simply dive right in. From the moment new engineers join the firm they begin learning the nuances of the financial markets while receiving hands-on exposure to the work they’ll tackle.
“We want to position everyone who joins the firm for success from day one,” Dana Melillo, global head of engineering talent acquisition and early careers, explained in an interview with Business Insider.
Melillo helped design the firm’s two-week onboarding program, which is intended to give newly hired, early-career technologists the tools, knowledge and connections needed to thrive at the firm and in the financial services industry as a whole. This gives new hires ample opportunity to learn new skills — and make mistakes.
“We put them in an environment where they’ll be challenged, where they can fail and where they can learn from those failures,” Paulo Rodela, a managing director and head of post-trade engineering, told Business Insider.
Onboarding Week 1
During the first week of onboarding, new hires engage in intensive financial markets training, where they learn about finance fundamentals, such as options strategies that minimize market exposure and interest rate swaps. They then put this knowledge into practice during simulated trading competitions.
“It was really cool to move from starting off manually to creating real systematic trades at the end — just like we do at the firm with much more complexity,” Justin Milushev, a Citadel accounting engineer who took part in one of these competitions, shared in an interview with Business Insider.
This two-week program is the start of an onboarding program that spans two years. During this time, new hires, many of whom graduated college just a few months earlier, get to connect with leaders, other early-career technologists and more senior engineers through various networking events.
CREDIT: Photo: Citadel
ALT TEXT: Citadel Software Engineer Cindy Zhang sits at a computer with two monitors, hands over the keyboard, smiling.
Speaking with Business Insider, Software Engineer Cindy Zhang shared how these opportunities for connection give new engineers the chance to more fully understand the firm as a whole and get to know their peers on a personal level.
“They do a really good job at building community and getting you introduced to various parts of the firm,” Zhang said.
<SNIPPET BOX> Onboarding Week 2
Once new hires reach the second week of onboarding, they learn about the firm’s various platforms and tooling with support from the Citadel X team, which builds customized technology and tools for the firm’s businesses. Recently, new hires in this phase of onboarding were asked to take part in a new team-focused activity, during which they built an app backed by an imaginary exchange where users could buy and sell securities. According to Melillo, this initiative is designed to resemble what an actual engineering project may look like, enabling new hires to prepare for the work they’ll handle in their roles.
“They do a really good job at building community and getting you introduced to various parts of the firm,” Zhang said.
Onboarding Week 2
Once new hires reach the second week of onboarding, they learn about the firm’s various platforms and tooling with support from the Citadel X team, which builds customized technology and tools for the firm’s businesses. Recently, new hires in this phase of onboarding were asked to take part in a new team-focused activity, during which they built an app backed by an imaginary exchange where users could buy and sell securities. According to Melillo, this initiative is designed to resemble what an actual engineering project may look like, enabling new hires to prepare for the work they’ll handle in their roles.
Citadel’s program enables new hires to make the most out of their time at the firm — and empower others. Zhang, who has completed the two-year onboarding journey, gets to pass her insight onto others as a mentor, enabling her to support others who have just begun carving out their own career paths.
“It’s also helpful for me because it gives me a chance to reflect on my own career and what has gone well, what I wish I’d done differently, and share that to hopefully help someone else,” she told Business Insider.