How to get a job at Balyasny, the hedge fund hiring interns and portfolio managers

Balyasny Asset Management (BAM) had a good year in 2025. The hedge fund posted 16.7% returns, more than the likes of Millennium and Citadel, and it's looking to grow further in 2026. Speaking on the Generating Alpha podcast over the weekend, founder Dimitry Balyasny revealed what it takes to belong at BAM.

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What intern and graduate opportunities are there at Balyasny?

Balyasny said that the fund hired ~100 interns last year (more than previously projected), and that next year's intake is "probably going to be 130-140 globally." The fund has a pretty good retention rate, hiring 65% of its interns full-time according to Balyasny, but what does it take to be chosen in the first place?

Balyasny said these interns "come in from all the top schools, investment clubs and math programs," and work across various departments including tech, risk and trading. 'Top schools' presumably include the likes of Princeton, NYU and MIT, where Balyasny himself previously traveled to talk to students. 

If you join BAM full-time via its analyst program, Balyasny said that your relationship with your portfolio manager (PM) becomes similar to that of a padawan and a Jedi master from Star Wars: “You’ve got to like and respect your Jedi and think that’s somebody you could learn a lot from," he said.

What do investment analysts and portfolio managers do at Balyasny?

There's a lot of similarities between the PMs and investment analysts that BAM is hiring. Balyasny said that both analysts and PMs need to provide a "consistent flow" of "unique, varying ideas" about things that a lot of people are also looking at. 

Alongside creativity, Balyasny said candidates need "investment discipline." A smart but ill-disciplined analyst, for example, "might fall in love with one idea. They have a hard time running models on 100 different companies."

The big difference between analysts and PMs is "risk tolerance." Balyasny said that PMs "need the ability to juggle lots of different balls." He said that "risk is tough to coach," and that most people have an "innate" level of risk that can be influenced, but not substantially changed. 

What is the right risk profile? Speaking at the LSE Alternate Investments Conference in 2024, Balyasny said it means "enough confidence to take meaningful risk and tolerate the volatility and tolerate drawdowns and not drive yourself crazy." 

If this isn't you, maybe you could be analyst instead. He said on the podcast that "a great thing about being an analyst is you can go super deep on a particular thing and not worry about anything else." As a PM, meanwhile, "every day there's something blowing up your book."

Who is Balyasny Asset Management Hiring?

BAM has been growing its portfolio manager ranks. Balyasny said on the Generating Alpha podcast that the fund has roughly 200 PMs, up from ~175 in August. It's not clear where exactly the recent additions were based, but six months ago, the fund had 113 PMs in the US, 39 in EMEA and 24 in Asia.

Balyasny is especially focused on Asia, where revenues were up over 80% last year. Last month, Bloomberg said BAM had 250 staff in the region across 30 investment teams. It has 23 openings in Asia today, including listings for traders, quants and engineers. 

Last year, BAM made a number of big name hires, including multiple who were going through drawdown periods. Balyasny previously suggested that people are willing to join the fund on lower wages than elsewhere because of the strength of the firm's culture. In last week's podcast, he said that top talent are guaranteed high pay at any of the major funds; if a few extra million dollars is "the main thing you’re offering... that’s not really compelling." Despite this, staff in Balyasny's UK entity had more than double the total compensation per head of most major hedge funds according to their most recent annual accounts via Companies House.

Balyasny said that, when screening candidates, "we look for passion a lot. Is this person super excited to be in this business, in this firm, in this role?” He said that having passion is important to get through those "miserable periods when nothing is working [and] you feel like the biggest idiot in the world."

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