Aspen Search

Aspen Search is a specialist recruitment company founded on the principle that the best quantitative researchers and engineers require more than transactional job placement. Since 2006, Aspen Search has spent nearly two decades inside the hiring rooms of top systematic firms and venture-backed technology teams, building deep expertise in how these organisations operate, their research structures, and what genuine career progression looks like. The company places software engineers, quantitative researchers, and AI/ML scientists into firms shaping markets and technology, moving careers that compound rather than pursuing volume-based recruitment. Aspen Search operates with a partner-led model where senior talent personally manage each search from intake to offer, ensuring candidates receive honest conversations about their next five years rather than generic role pitches.

Aspen Search specialises across four core recruitment verticals. Quantitative research placements focus on researchers who own signals end to end, from initial conception to live capital deployment, with expertise in signal research, portfolio construction, systematic equities and futures, and PhD/post-doc transitions. Engineering and infrastructure recruitment targets the engineers who maintain strategies in production, covering low-latency C++, execution and order routing, market data pipelines, and research platform teams, primarily attracting talent from major technology companies. The company's AI and machine learning division connects researchers and engineers moving between frontier labs, venture-backed teams, and quantitative funds, specialising in applied AI engineering, machine learning and deep learning research, training infrastructure, and founding technical hires. Leadership and team building services extend beyond single placements to encompass entire functions, including heads of research, engineering leadership, new desk buildouts, and multi-year hiring plans.

Aspen Search operates from offices in New York and Los Angeles, serving clients across the quantitative finance and technology sectors. The company works exclusively with firms that pay top-of-market compensation, maintain best-in-class research environments, and treat hiring as a long-term strategic investment. Client relationships span nearly two decades, representing firms such as Headlands, Two Sigma, Citadel EQR, Vatic Labs, GQS, and Syntria. Aspen Search differentiates itself through deep institutional knowledge, partner-led execution, transparent communication, and a commitment to building lasting career trajectories rather than filling positions.