What first attracted you to Optiver?
I first heard about Optiver from a friend who had interned here. They had nothing but good things to say about their experience and some of the things they got to work on really impressed me. Optiver is the sort of place that gives their people a lot of trust and autonomy, which is something that can, unfortunately, be quite rare at other companies.
The projects and tasks also seemed to be unique and technically interesting – there are very few places in the world where you’ll get to work on ultra-low-level code or manage a machine learning cluster, let alone be able to do both, at the level of a graduate or intern.
What does your role entail?
I work in our Delta 1 team, which works across markets to develop and build our auto traders, data pipelines, research tools, and pretty much whatever else we need to be successful. I get to wear a lot of hats and touch a lot of different systems with different requirements, which I really value. One day I could be working on enabling part of our auto trading strategy in C++, the next, our backtesting and data pipelines in python.
The Delta 1 team is what some people informally call a core team. This means that we work on a product or set of products that work across markets, and focus on making that scale, so we can develop one Autotrader, but trade many products and markets. This is opposed to our market-facing squads, which focus on a few markets and take care to make sure our products adjust to the specific quirks of each market. Sometimes there’s a bit of overlap, like, during a recent Osaka securities exchange upgrade, I was working very closely with the Japan IT team to test our Delta 1 products with the changes that the exchange was made.
What key skills are required?
I’d say above all, the mindset that you come in with each day is the most important thing by far.
The reality of working in such a complicated, technical environment is that there are always going to be things you don’t understand or know. Add on the fact that there’s a lot of trust and ownership given to you right away here, it’s super important to be able to reach out for help and to be constantly learning. Otherwise, having some technical chops and a reasonable understanding of finance will help, though the latter is not essential when first starting.
What are some of the projects you are working on (non-confidential)?
One of the great advantages of working for a core team is that I get to work on a really diverse set of projects. In my short time here, I’ve touched projects as low level as compiler theory, prepared our products for a large exchange upgrade, and worked with our backtesting cluster which utilises thousands of CPUs.
How do you start your day at Optiver?
When I’m in the office, I like to head up to our level 7 kitchen and grab a nice breakfast. Then, I’ll head down to my desk and catch up on the latest news, email, and slack before getting right into the swing of things. I’m most productive in the morning, so I like to hunker down and get things done before I have to stand up at 11:30. Afterwards, if we’re in the office, I might grab a coffee or tea with the team, then get some PR reviews done, or have a chat with a trader, before I grab lunch.
What do you love about your work?
I love that I work in an environment full of smart, driven people. It’s like having a team of the best people in your uni projects, except you get to work with them all the time, instead of just a semester.
People are proactive, and always willing to help you out or explain things to you. I don’t think there’s been a single day so far where I haven’t learnt something new.
Aside from the people, the nature of the work is really great. I get to work on intellectually stimulating puzzles that often have a direct impact on the organisation, which really gets me fired up.
What keeps you motivated?
Optiver has a very fast feedback loop because our “clients” are either sitting next to us or just downstairs from us. This means it’s super easy to see the tangible impacts that you’re having, which I find really gratifying.
Being in an environment where people place a lot of trust in me also motivates me to try and do the best I can. Everybody wants you to succeed, so you can’t help but want to rise to and exceed those expectations!
Do you have interests outside of work that help you in your role?
I have some interest in finance in general which really helped (and continues to help) with my understanding of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. I also used to work with a few student clubs when I was in university, which I think has helped give me experience communicating with stakeholders and balancing needs/requirements from people.
What’s your advice to potential applicants?
Take the time to understand Optiver, what we do, and bring your real self to the interviews. We want to find out if you’ll be a good fit for us, as much as we want to find out if we’ll be a good fit for you.
Other than that, my advice is: apply, or get in touch! I think Optiver’s a great place to work, and I hope you will too.