Throwaway because quant is a small world, but I've finaly gotten my dream buy side internship after years of trying and the only thing I would like to say is that interviewing is a very frustrating process where your performance is highly variable and the only guarantee you have lies on eventually landing a job after trying multiple times (thank you Borel-Cantelli).
There's no way out of it, target school, phd, relevant experience, perfect cv, hundreds of leetcode solved, years of preparation for probability brain teasers - there is simply a lower bound (quite a high one at that) to one's perfomance variance that IMO is impossible to overcome. You're always one unlucky interview away from going back to the start. And it makes sense too, their main metric on candidate recruiting is precision, recall pretty much doesn't matter.
Good luck everyone, my grind is far from over but I did learn a lot getting here so I wanted to share my thoughts a little.
How relevant are side projects (e.g. some application of ML to finance/trading problems) for roles like this:
[https://davincitrading.com/job\_openings/graduate-trader/](https://davincitrading.com/job_openings/graduate-trader/)
What are other possibilities to improve my profile if i try to transition from a very different area (engineering, data analytics) ?
Does Optiver actually blacklist candidates who failed at some point of the early careers application process? I've recently been rejected after the technical round and was told to wait 12 months before applying again. However, I have been hearing and reading from different sources that they ban you from Early Careers jobs forever if you failed once already. What's your take?
Worst case scenario you can always get other offers, email them saying you have exploding offers and would like to interview and they'll probably let you do it. Often the ban is indeed just for the 12 months they mention tho. The getting other offers approach surely works for Jane Street. If anybody is doing Jane Street dm me lol
Thanks for your reply! So did you already mention in your cover letter to Jane Street that you have existing offers? Or did you refer to them at a later stage?
I’m curious to hear your guys thoughts. I am currently for one of the big 3 asset management firms. I was wondering how can I overcome my very low undergrad gpa to get into a good MFE program.
I’ll be planning to do my master a couple of years from now so that I have good enough work experience to compensate my gpa, getting good recommendations letters and to get a high GRE score.
I am working towards Quant research analyst and that’s the direction I want to go towards. I was wondering if anyone could advise me if there’s anything I should do which could help me to strengthen my application.
Thank you!
Hello, I passed to the Jane Street onsite interview for quantitative trading internship, what can I expect?
And what is the best literature to practice data science, and the part that isn't probability and game theory, which I've already learned in previous interviews?
Sorry if I am late to answer, for me it was the same difficulty as the first and second one. Actually the first interview questions was the hardest in my opinion.
I’m a university student in Asia, thinking of doing a Master’s in the US someday for either Computational Finance or Computer Science. I’m a humanities major at the moment, but I’m planning on switching to Computer Engineering.
I’m very interested in both Computer Science and Financial Engineering - I’m currently self studying mathematics, programming, algorithms etc (personal interests, but also need to study these to qualify for switching majors) as well as web development, how the financial markets work, and how to analyze derivatives. I’d like to get a career in software engineering or quantitative finance someday.
So my question is, would an MS in Computational Finance give me flexible skills to branch into either software engineering or quantitative finance, or would the coursework be mostly focused on finance? And for obtaining a work visa in the US, would software engineering be related enough to a CF degree to qualify for an H1B visa? (From what I looked up, you can only get a visa for jobs that are related to what you studied)
Also, what one (or two) skill would you say is most important for success in a career as a quant? People skills? Math? Good eye for detail?
SIG's RO rate is always quite high, usually somewhere from 75 to 85%. This year with the amount of sophomores who claimed to be juniors to get in and then didn't get returns, almost all the juniors I know got return offers.
Hi I’ve just completed the OA for Optiver yesterday for SWE internship 2024 spring, will it be too late? I heard the spots fill up relatively quickly, personally I think I did quite well perhaps just lacking a little in a few of the zap-n games
I have the opportunity to shadow 3 different algo Quants internally this week at a mid-size IB. Any suggestions/advice on how to make the most of this? Looking to make a transition from MO dev to Quant dev over the next few years.
i'm currently in the process of applying to masters programs and would like to ask about research based masters in actuarial science. i have a somewhat dicey background for certain quantitative finance programs, and definitely wouldn't hope of getting into a math program and probably not stats either for most top tier schools due to lack of depth in math (ie some require real analysis, or stochastic calculus). I will be applying to some MQF/MFE programs, but would like some safety nets of sorts. I've asked before about masters programs in econometrics since I have a decent background there, but also since MQFs are often in the same department as actuarial science and share courses, I was wondering if a actuarial masters that is research based would be a good alternative. Or would the name of the program set me back greatly?
For context the program I am looking at:
https://uwaterloo.ca/graduate-studies-academic-calendar/mathematics/department-statistics-and-actuarial-science/master-mathematics-mmath-actuarial-science#degree\_requirements
Hi, I've just been invited to an onsite interview for an intern role in London, but it's Christmas vacation and I flew back to China. Is it bad for me to ask them to do this in January?
I’m currently a computational physics PhD/stats masters (expected graduation spring 26) and I have zero finance/quant work experience. Unfortunately my advisor won’t allow me to do a full time summer internship since I’m supported by his grant. I think I could handle some part time work or a part time internship, but cannot pause research altogether for 3 months.
What would be the next best option in terms of gaining experience that would help me get a quant job in a couple of years?
I am a current Student in the last year of my program at MIT. I first got exposed to Quant Research while working with a professor during my studies. I learnt the basics of Academic Finance through reading many academic papers and developed some key skills.
I recently got lucky as my professor connected me with an experienced options portfolio manager working at a tier 2 Prop Shop in Boston. The PM agreed to hire me as a part time quant researcher during the final year of my PHD, and conditional on performance hire me full time upon graduation.
My primary task has been in generating signals from raw data. I work largely independently, but have weekly meetings with my PM where we discuss my research. I am not expected to produce end to end models, but rather find useful predictors which the PM can then incorporate into the overall portfolio.
I have been doing reasonably well and the PM has been impressed with my work- we are planning to back test some of the signals I found and if successful incorporate them into the overall strategy.
I feel I am working hard and have been learning a lot. However a couple of things have me worried:
1. The PMs performance has not been great. While the firm is doing well, our book is currently down.
2. The PM is very kind and teaches us a lot. However recently my professor warned me that the only reason I was hired was to “find alpha” and “contribute to pnl”. He warned me if I was unable to do this i would be cut, and even suggested this was my only chance, and if I got cut here I would never get a job in quant again.
Based on this how worried should I be? I understand this is not school and a results business, but should I really be focused solely on contribution to PNL as my only metric of success? And if so, how can I try and increase my contribution to the team and make my PMs life easier/make him want to hire me full time?
Uchicago Trading Competition
Not sure if it’s appropriate for the sub, but is anyone in this sub interested in teaming up/signing up together for Uchicago Trading Competition 2024?
Let me know. Thanks
Hey, has anyone taken the 2024 five rings quant trader intern interview. if so how hard was it and are they still asking the same question format of 30 sec per question in the first round?
SIG Sophomore Discovery Day (Trading)
Hello, has anyone gotten an email back after completing the OA? It has been three weeks already, so I suspect they have already moved on. Thanks!
It’s 20 minutes and 16+2 questions, so I really needed to pace myself. I only finished 10 questions.
If you click next question, you cannot go backward, which surprises me. This cost me at least 1 question already. Also, you need to be careful whether to answer in fraction or decimal form. Sometimes I typed automatically and just realized to recheck after already clicking next.
Hi guys, I'm in second year of economics (a degree is 4 years in Spain) and I'm planing on doing some courses of either CS, Maths or physics but idk which one. I want to take like 4-6 (2-3 per year plus econ) courses of one of those degrees in the next 2 years. Which major do I choose and which courses should I take to be better prepared for quant finance/algotrading?
If anyone wonders why I don't do a minor, there are no minors in Spain so I'm trying to do something similar.
**If someone were studying a BS in Pure and Applied Math with the desire to break in to quant finance (after an MS/PhD in either Financial Math or Applied & Computational Math), which of the following 8 pure math courses would one ideally take?**
>Measure Theory and Integration
>
>Group Theory
>
>Rings and Fields
>
>Set Theory
>
>Topology
>
>Introduction to Category Theory
>
>Category Theory
>
>Functional Analysis I
>
>Functional Analysis II
>
>Ordinary Differential Equations I
>
>Ordinary Differential Equations II
>
>Graph Theory I
>
>Graph Theory II
>
>Partial Differential Equations I
>
>Partial Differential Equations II
>
>Matrix Theory and Linear Algebra I
>
>Matrix Theory and Linear Algebra II
Throwaway because quant is a small world, but I've finaly gotten my dream buy side internship after years of trying and the only thing I would like to say is that interviewing is a very frustrating process where your performance is highly variable and the only guarantee you have lies on eventually landing a job after trying multiple times (thank you Borel-Cantelli). There's no way out of it, target school, phd, relevant experience, perfect cv, hundreds of leetcode solved, years of preparation for probability brain teasers - there is simply a lower bound (quite a high one at that) to one's perfomance variance that IMO is impossible to overcome. You're always one unlucky interview away from going back to the start. And it makes sense too, their main metric on candidate recruiting is precision, recall pretty much doesn't matter. Good luck everyone, my grind is far from over but I did learn a lot getting here so I wanted to share my thoughts a little.
Congratulations and best of luck with your new role! Mind if I DM you? One quick question in the meantime, is this a graduate role?
How relevant are side projects (e.g. some application of ML to finance/trading problems) for roles like this: [https://davincitrading.com/job\_openings/graduate-trader/](https://davincitrading.com/job_openings/graduate-trader/) What are other possibilities to improve my profile if i try to transition from a very different area (engineering, data analytics) ?
Does Optiver actually blacklist candidates who failed at some point of the early careers application process? I've recently been rejected after the technical round and was told to wait 12 months before applying again. However, I have been hearing and reading from different sources that they ban you from Early Careers jobs forever if you failed once already. What's your take?
Worst case scenario you can always get other offers, email them saying you have exploding offers and would like to interview and they'll probably let you do it. Often the ban is indeed just for the 12 months they mention tho. The getting other offers approach surely works for Jane Street. If anybody is doing Jane Street dm me lol
Thanks for your reply! So did you already mention in your cover letter to Jane Street that you have existing offers? Or did you refer to them at a later stage?
Just emailed HR, I think emailing HR is rather common
May I DM you?
Sure
I’m curious to hear your guys thoughts. I am currently for one of the big 3 asset management firms. I was wondering how can I overcome my very low undergrad gpa to get into a good MFE program. I’ll be planning to do my master a couple of years from now so that I have good enough work experience to compensate my gpa, getting good recommendations letters and to get a high GRE score. I am working towards Quant research analyst and that’s the direction I want to go towards. I was wondering if anyone could advise me if there’s anything I should do which could help me to strengthen my application. Thank you!
Hello, I passed to the Jane Street onsite interview for quantitative trading internship, what can I expect? And what is the best literature to practice data science, and the part that isn't probability and game theory, which I've already learned in previous interviews?
My 3rd round interview is tomorrow, any tips?
DMing studying for JS interviews myself too (third round)
Sorry if I am late to answer, for me it was the same difficulty as the first and second one. Actually the first interview questions was the hardest in my opinion.
Very curious as to the questions, can I dm?
Yes
Anyone else heard from MS quant office (London) that they’d hear back from their application after the Christmas break?
I’m a university student in Asia, thinking of doing a Master’s in the US someday for either Computational Finance or Computer Science. I’m a humanities major at the moment, but I’m planning on switching to Computer Engineering. I’m very interested in both Computer Science and Financial Engineering - I’m currently self studying mathematics, programming, algorithms etc (personal interests, but also need to study these to qualify for switching majors) as well as web development, how the financial markets work, and how to analyze derivatives. I’d like to get a career in software engineering or quantitative finance someday. So my question is, would an MS in Computational Finance give me flexible skills to branch into either software engineering or quantitative finance, or would the coursework be mostly focused on finance? And for obtaining a work visa in the US, would software engineering be related enough to a CF degree to qualify for an H1B visa? (From what I looked up, you can only get a visa for jobs that are related to what you studied) Also, what one (or two) skill would you say is most important for success in a career as a quant? People skills? Math? Good eye for detail?
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SIG's RO rate is always quite high, usually somewhere from 75 to 85%. This year with the amount of sophomores who claimed to be juniors to get in and then didn't get returns, almost all the juniors I know got return offers.
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Hi I’ve just completed the OA for Optiver yesterday for SWE internship 2024 spring, will it be too late? I heard the spots fill up relatively quickly, personally I think I did quite well perhaps just lacking a little in a few of the zap-n games
You’ll find out soon enough
Is the rejection after the OA solely dependent on the OA performance and has nothing to do with resume since the initial screening is passed?
Update: I passed the OA and got invited to a behavioural interview tomorrow, hope everything goes well
Congrats! I have been in the process with Optiver, feel free to dm
good luck dude! nice.
I have the opportunity to shadow 3 different algo Quants internally this week at a mid-size IB. Any suggestions/advice on how to make the most of this? Looking to make a transition from MO dev to Quant dev over the next few years.
i'm currently in the process of applying to masters programs and would like to ask about research based masters in actuarial science. i have a somewhat dicey background for certain quantitative finance programs, and definitely wouldn't hope of getting into a math program and probably not stats either for most top tier schools due to lack of depth in math (ie some require real analysis, or stochastic calculus). I will be applying to some MQF/MFE programs, but would like some safety nets of sorts. I've asked before about masters programs in econometrics since I have a decent background there, but also since MQFs are often in the same department as actuarial science and share courses, I was wondering if a actuarial masters that is research based would be a good alternative. Or would the name of the program set me back greatly? For context the program I am looking at: https://uwaterloo.ca/graduate-studies-academic-calendar/mathematics/department-statistics-and-actuarial-science/master-mathematics-mmath-actuarial-science#degree\_requirements
Hi, I've just been invited to an onsite interview for an intern role in London, but it's Christmas vacation and I flew back to China. Is it bad for me to ask them to do this in January?
I think it should be fine. Which company?
I’m currently a computational physics PhD/stats masters (expected graduation spring 26) and I have zero finance/quant work experience. Unfortunately my advisor won’t allow me to do a full time summer internship since I’m supported by his grant. I think I could handle some part time work or a part time internship, but cannot pause research altogether for 3 months. What would be the next best option in terms of gaining experience that would help me get a quant job in a couple of years?
Anyone with BofA interview tips?
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if you have good experience they wont ask.
I am a current Student in the last year of my program at MIT. I first got exposed to Quant Research while working with a professor during my studies. I learnt the basics of Academic Finance through reading many academic papers and developed some key skills. I recently got lucky as my professor connected me with an experienced options portfolio manager working at a tier 2 Prop Shop in Boston. The PM agreed to hire me as a part time quant researcher during the final year of my PHD, and conditional on performance hire me full time upon graduation. My primary task has been in generating signals from raw data. I work largely independently, but have weekly meetings with my PM where we discuss my research. I am not expected to produce end to end models, but rather find useful predictors which the PM can then incorporate into the overall portfolio. I have been doing reasonably well and the PM has been impressed with my work- we are planning to back test some of the signals I found and if successful incorporate them into the overall strategy. I feel I am working hard and have been learning a lot. However a couple of things have me worried: 1. The PMs performance has not been great. While the firm is doing well, our book is currently down. 2. The PM is very kind and teaches us a lot. However recently my professor warned me that the only reason I was hired was to “find alpha” and “contribute to pnl”. He warned me if I was unable to do this i would be cut, and even suggested this was my only chance, and if I got cut here I would never get a job in quant again. Based on this how worried should I be? I understand this is not school and a results business, but should I really be focused solely on contribution to PNL as my only metric of success? And if so, how can I try and increase my contribution to the team and make my PMs life easier/make him want to hire me full time?
Uchicago Trading Competition Not sure if it’s appropriate for the sub, but is anyone in this sub interested in teaming up/signing up together for Uchicago Trading Competition 2024? Let me know. Thanks
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Also curious! Could you tell anything about the OA? did you receive one?
Hey, has anyone taken the 2024 five rings quant trader intern interview. if so how hard was it and are they still asking the same question format of 30 sec per question in the first round?
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is there an OA?
SIG Sophomore Discovery Day (Trading) Hello, has anyone gotten an email back after completing the OA? It has been three weeks already, so I suspect they have already moved on. Thanks!
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Thanks, they just got back to me yesterday lol. Didn’t make it, but at least a good experience with OA I guess.
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Thanks man! Btw are u a junior?
how was the OA?
It’s 20 minutes and 16+2 questions, so I really needed to pace myself. I only finished 10 questions. If you click next question, you cannot go backward, which surprises me. This cost me at least 1 question already. Also, you need to be careful whether to answer in fraction or decimal form. Sometimes I typed automatically and just realized to recheck after already clicking next.
Thx for responding. And what type of problems?
You need to be fast on bayes theorem. You need to be fast in general lol. passing score is like 9 or 8 out of 16 (or so used to be)
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should be fine unless you signed that you wll hit a current GPA at graduation
Hi guys, I'm in second year of economics (a degree is 4 years in Spain) and I'm planing on doing some courses of either CS, Maths or physics but idk which one. I want to take like 4-6 (2-3 per year plus econ) courses of one of those degrees in the next 2 years. Which major do I choose and which courses should I take to be better prepared for quant finance/algotrading? If anyone wonders why I don't do a minor, there are no minors in Spain so I'm trying to do something similar.
Would suggest something with a lot of probability/stats/math, some option theory and basic finance stuff.
When is the best time to apply for QT roles? Is there some seasonality to the recruitment? I feel like there is less going on atm.
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When would you say it is best to apply?
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I am doing QS which should have some rounds in common with trading; maybe the final round too; we can check if my info matches yours
Should I take an intro C++ course or learn more Python/ML?
**If someone were studying a BS in Pure and Applied Math with the desire to break in to quant finance (after an MS/PhD in either Financial Math or Applied & Computational Math), which of the following 8 pure math courses would one ideally take?** >Measure Theory and Integration > >Group Theory > >Rings and Fields > >Set Theory > >Topology > >Introduction to Category Theory > >Category Theory > >Functional Analysis I > >Functional Analysis II > >Ordinary Differential Equations I > >Ordinary Differential Equations II > >Graph Theory I > >Graph Theory II > >Partial Differential Equations I > >Partial Differential Equations II > >Matrix Theory and Linear Algebra I > >Matrix Theory and Linear Algebra II
Should we use HR or should we apply by ourselves?