Aquatic Capital Management, a systematic hedge fund firm founded in 2019 by Jonathan Graham, the former Head of Statistical Arbitrage and Equity High-Frequency Trading at Citadel, has appointed David Harks as a software engineer, according to a report by eFinancial Careers.

Harks, who joins from Balayasny, has focused on data engineering throughout his career, having also held roles at HFT firms including Jump Trading, rival hedge fund Citadel and fintech Clear Street. He is based in Chicago.

Harks' appointment follows those of Liz Sitian Chen, formerly a quant research ED at AQR Capital Management who joined the New York office last month as a quant researcher; Marc Higginson-Rollins, a former product manager at Citadel Securities, who joined the Chicago office last month; and Bryan Kressler, who joined the New York office in March after a 13-year tenure at Google, where he was a staff engineer and tech lead in search infrastructure.

Outside of the US, Aquatic hired at least seven London-based employees in the past year.