I am an MIT '28 studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, with a focus on systems, performance engineering, and low-level programming. I've developed an interest in finance over the past year, and will be applying to many quantitative finance firms beginning with the June 2026-Feb 2027 recruiting cycle for summer 2027 internships. Will I be successful in obtaining a >=$10k offer before 2030?

I will do my best to answer relevant questions asked in the comments!

Note, I'm interested in this field out of technical interest/passion about markets, rather than seeking status/money, but I am using salary as a proxy to help estimate my chance of receiving a more technically involved/meaningful role.

• I pledge to not trade in this market.

• The role must be primarily technical in nature, including technical leadership roles. Primarily technical roles involve [developing, architecting, optimizing, debugging, analyzing, applying, or operating] [specific software, infrastructure, mathematical frameworks, or scientific methodologies] on a day-to-day basis. General enterprise IT, back-office web development, post-trade reporting, and technical writing roles are explicitly excluded. Fintech companies are included if their primary business is trading or risk, excluded if their primary business is payments infrastructure or retail banking. This requirement will be evaluated on a team-level if possible for firms with multiple business functions.

• The role must be in established finance. This includes buy and sell side, crypto, equities, options, insurance, and credit trading, technical roles in IB, hedge funds, prop trading firms. This excludes exchanges, crypto protocols, and other market infrastructure-focused companies.

• The offer can be an internship or full-time position. Part-time or consulting roles do not qualify for a YES resolution. The offer must be for at least 8 weeks.

• The role must offer >=$10k/month in equivalent base salary, excluding equity and non-cash benefits. Hourly or yearly pay will be adjusted based on the assumption of working 175 hr / month and 12 months / yr. The threshold will be measured in Jan 2026 dollars benchmarked to CPI-U. The source of the CPI-U benchmark will be the Bureau of Labor Statistics or a consensus of credible reporting. If such an index ceases to be reported, I will replace it with an equivalent measure.

• The actual start date can be in 2030 or later, as long as the written offer is received before the deadline.

• Must be a formal, written offer (email or official document). Verbal offers or "advanced interview stages" do not count.

• The offer must be "credible", that is in my own personal judgement that the conditional probability that I get paid the agreed upon amount for the first 12 weeks of the contract, or its full duration if shorter, is >90% given I fulfill my obligations under the contract. I will not use this clause to exclude an offer from a recognizable firm with standard employment documentation.

• My obligations under the contract shouldn't be anything unreasonable based on my personal judgement of a broad industry consensus (e.g. risk my physical health, jeopardize my citizenship, atypically strict non-competes, requiring relocation to a sanctioned country). I will only use this in unusual/egregious cases.

If the resolution is disputed, I may use a Manifold poll to decide the outcome.

Examples that resolve YES:

• [Software engineer, quantitative researcher, quantitative developer, FPGA engineer, data scientist, ML researcher, ML engineer] at a hedge fund/prop shop/IB firm

• Leadership roles like [CTO, engineering manager, quantitative portfolio manager] at a hedge fund/prop shop/IB firm

Examples that resolve NO:

• [Junior IB, general enterprise IT, back-office web developer, primarily post-trade reporting / clearing focused roles] are not sufficiently technical and are explicitly excluded

• A SWE role at a crypto prop shop startup offering $50/hr (in Jan 2026 dollars), as the adjusted $8,750 / month < $10,000 requirement