Senior Search · New York & San Francisco · Since 2009

We run the searches that don’t get posted.

Senior seats across quantitative trading, artificial intelligence, distributed systems, and frontier tech. A handpicked, rapidly scaling client list. Candidates who don’t get spammed.

400+
Placements
Across the team since 2009.
5:1
Candidates per offer
Industry norm is closer to 25:1.
17yrs
One firm. Senior team.
Same standard the whole time.
0
Candidates we shop around
One firm, one role, one conversation at a time.
The Approach

One senior partner. Four hundred placements. One standard.

Access

The strongest seats in quant and frontier tech are filled before anyone hears about them. We run the searches our clients don’t post. Pods, founding seats, leadership lifts, build-outs. If you only see roles on LinkedIn, you’re seeing the wrong half of the market.

Discretion

One conversation, one firm, one role at a time. Your name doesn’t move until you say so. We’ve placed people leaving funds they founded and founders leaving funds they joined. Quiet is the default.

Taste

Four hundred placements across systematic trading, HFT, AI, and distributed systems give us a view most candidates don’t have. We know which seats are real, which comp packages are honest, and which founders are worth a meeting.

Continuity

Most of our candidates become clients. Most of our clients started as candidates. We track careers across a decade, not a quarter. The first call is never the last one we have.

The Work

Where we run searches.

Four domains. Deep coverage in each. Senior individual contributors through founding executives.

01
Quantitative Trading & HFT
Portfolio managers and pod leads, quant researchers across systematic and high frequency strategies, AI/deep learning researchers, low latency engineers, and heads of trading.
02
Artificial Intelligence
Research scientists, applied AI engineers, ML infrastructure leads, alignment and safety researchers, and founding technical talent for frontier labs.
03
Distributed Systems
Trading systems architects, exchange and matching engine engineers, real time platform leads, and the infrastructure talent that sits beneath every fast market.
04
Hard Tech
Founding engineers and technical leadership across robotics, defense, energy, frontier compute, and the categories of company that don’t yet have a name.
The Process

How a first conversation goes.

Twenty minutes on the phone. We listen first. You leave with something useful whether or not you take the seat.

I.

We talk.

Twenty minutes. What you’d want next. What you’d never do again. Where you are in your seat and where you’re trying to go. We listen first; the market view comes second.

II.

We match, or we don’t.

If we have a fit, we walk you through it in detail. Comp, team, edge, what the seat actually is. If we don’t, we tell you that too. The 5:1 ratio exists because we don’t run people on roles that aren’t right.

III.

You decide.

We never push. If now isn’t the moment, we put you in the calendar for a few months out. Some of our best placements started years before the offer.

The Team

Senior team. The person you talk to runs your search.

A small senior team by design. No associates between you and the partner. No handoffs after the first call.

B.
Founder & Senior Partner
Brennan Hughes
Quantitative Trading, HFT, Distributed Systems

Founded Axiom in 2009. Personally completed more than four hundred placements across quant trading and tech, with a 5:1 candidate to offer ratio. Based in New York.

View LinkedIn  →
S.
Principal
Stephen Arriz
Quantitative Trading, Research, Engineering

Quant search specialist. Places PMs, senior researchers, and engineers at top systematic trading and HFT funds.

View LinkedIn  →
Get in touch

When you’re ready,
we’ll be here.