Obviously, the numbers vary a lot, but most top tier firms will start you at a minimum of 150-200k usd including bonus the first year. If I had to estimate the median salary growth from there on, I'd guess it to be around 50% a year, with the rate slowing down as you get to 750-1mm. After five years on the job, the median would be around 700k, with the top 10 percentile making more than 2-3mm. At that point, if you're good, you're probably leading a team (or are a senior quant in an all-star team), and your bonus depends almost entirely on performance.

An interesting downside to this, especially for young traders who get to the high numbers, is that they often begin to treat their bonuses as a given. Once you make seven figures, it becomes easy to assume that your smarts will ensure financial prosperity for the rest of your life. But bonuses in trading are very volatile - I think of mine like an NFL player's paycheck, rather than a software engineer's salary. Competition from different firms, financial regulation and shifts in market structure often come in the way of long term salary guarantees. Over the years, I've seen that those who survive through thick and thin (well, 'thin' in a strictly relative sense) are the ones genuinely passionate about the intellectual challenges of trading.

From Quora: https://www.quora.com/How-much-do-traders-at-big-quantitativ...