What level is your degree in Math or Physics? What specialized experience do you have in programming quantitative finance applications? What specialized experienc do you have in high performance computing applications? Do you have business side experience in trading - what markets? ...So, then you know nothing of the business, nothing usefull to the developers and nothing usefull to the quant team... I'd back of the "negotion" until you have something of value to negotiate over. And it's probably not a good idea to piss off the recruiters at this point in your career - it is a very small an incestious world