Even as it battles India’s market regulator, high-frequency trading (HFT) firm Jane Street has made its presence felt at the country's top institutes with marquee offers. The firm has hired students from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campuses and could once again emerge as their highest-paying recruiter. The New York-headquartered company has recruited students from the class of 2026 for its Hong Kong team, even as its dispute with the Indian regulator is set to be heard by the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) this month.
“Jane Street has recruited from IIT-Bombay, Delhi and Madras,” said an executive aware of the development.
HFT and quant firms hire candidates who can analyze markets using mathematical and statistical models. Despite the global crests and troughs, this segment managed to recruit students from IITs for global postings at salaries that easily cross crore plus.
Although Mint could not ascertain the exact amount that Jane Street has offered to the students, the package could be similar to the one for batch of 2025, which was slightly above ₹4 crore. Jane Street has been recruiting from IIT-Delhi, Bombay and Madras for the last few years. Other HFTs that typically hire from the IITs include Optiver, Squarepoint, Tibra, JPMC Quant and Maverick Derivatives.
Jane Street did not respond to Mint’s queries sent on Friday and the three IITs also didn’t reply to mails sent on Monday morning.
Mint has learnt that Jane Street took its usual route of pre-placement offers, commonly referred to as PPOs. The company did not come to the IIT campuses for final placements. Some companies prefer to go in for PPOs across engineering and management campuses. A PPO is an offer letter given by companies to the shortlisted students after their summer internships with them.
Companies typically start scouting for campus talent at the beginning of a batch's third year for internships that take place in the summer break (May-July), before the fourth year kicks off in August. PPOs, if any, are made after a review of these internships. The selected students from the batch of 2026 would have, thus, interned with Jane Street in the summer of 2025.
The number of students who for PPOs from Jane Street could not be ascertained.
In December, Mint had reported that some other HFTs that went to IITs to recruit from the 2026 batch—either through the PPO route or final placements—included Quantbox Research, Graviton Research Capital, NK Securities, and Quadeye. Among other firms offering top salaries, quant trading firm Da Vinci Trading brought in about ₹2.6 crore.
After news of Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi) action against the firm came in last July, placement teams at these premier institutes were weighing their options regarding the top recruiter's hiring. But that issue seems to have been resolved, with the recruitment this year being done for the Hong Kong desk.
Regulatory Tangle
On 3 July 2025, the regulator had barred four entities of the Jane Street Group from accessing the securities market until they deposit alleged illegal gains into an escrow account. The action rattled shares of capital market-related companies and the broader financial services sector.
Mint had reported in September last year that Jane Street had made an appeal to the SAT against the regulator for withholding information related to the investigation and its findings that led to the July order against it.
Jane Street claims its trades had already been examined and cleared in two earlier reviews, one by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and another by Sebi’s Integrated Surveillance Department (ISD). Despite this, Sebi issued an interim order based on a fresh line of reasoning, without addressing or engaging with those earlier conclusions, it said. The appeal is set to be heard in SAT on 25 February.
For the time being, Jane Street has placed ₹4,843.6 crore in escrow to regain access to the market, in compliance with Sebi’s interim order. The firm has also abstained from initiating fresh purchases, stating that this reflects its cooperation with the regulatory process, while it seeks access to the relevant records required to present an effective defence before Sebi’s whole-time member.