Pros
Great shop. As an independent PM, you'll have full autonomy over your investment process and will be treated like a grown-up when it comes to risk. You are given all the tools and support to help your business succeed: -> QBIZ team (cubist business) will help you launch new strategies, trade new securities, etc. by liaising with brokers/venues/other parts of the firm, account set up, etc. Everything is very streamlined and you can tell they've done this many times before. -> ingestion of new data sets is a priority and they do a good job of it with a steady stream of new data sets announced every week. The data team is very responsive. -> Ross will (to a large extent) let you set the tone of his involvement in your business. He offers lots of ideas on research and risk management if you are receptive to it. Also helps you to focus on the business/management aspect. -> Most of all I'm impressed with the culture: senior management is always asking what we can do better and is receptive to feedback (both good and bad).
Kontras
The non-equity space lags the equity space in terms of set up and infrastructure, but cubist is aware of this and is working on catching up. There is little in the way of centralization of real-time market data feeds, utilities/tools for trade monitoring, etc. as the expectation is that you will build these yourself (this could be a pro/con depending on your point of view).