2022/2023 Quantitative Researcher Internship (Nov 2022)

From trading fundamentals to learning low-latency trading strategies, you will have countless opportunities where you can grow and develop yourself, both professionally and personally. The goal is that by the end of the summer internship, and if you were successful, you’ll be fully equipped to join the Optiver team as a Graduate Quantitative Researcher.

Ready to test your limits? Join Optiver and accelerate your growth in a truly fascinating, high-performance environment.

Who we are

Optiver is a tech-driven trading firm and leading global market maker. For over 35 years, Optiver has been improving financial markets around the world, making them more transparent and efficient for all participants. With a focus on cutting-edge engineering, data science and research, we actively trade on 50+ exchanges, where we’re trusted to always provide accurate buy and sell pricing – no matter the market conditions. 

Optiver’s Sydney office is one of the primary players within Asian markets, trading a range of products. As an active participant on the Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan exchanges, we act as Optiver’s APAC head office.

What you'll do

Over the first 10 weeks, you will be immersed in our highly interactive training course, alongside Traders and Software Developers, to learn the ins and outs of quantitative trading. Once you’ve got the basics covered, you’ll put your knowledge into practice and work on a project within one of the research teams. Our experienced Researchers will be around to mentor and guide you through the process. And if you’ve excelled during the internship program, you may also receive an offer to return and join the team as a Graduate Quantitative Researcher.

Who you are

You’re an inquisitive, critical thinker who is creative in innovating new solutions. When you are told that something “just is”, you immediately start to take it apart to understand the “why”. You’re a strong believer in the power of collaborative problem-solving. And you're excited to test yourself in one of the most competitive areas of the financial market. In addition, you:

• Are pragmatic and focused on outcomes
• Can communicate technical concepts well
• Enjoy utilising technology, programming or maths in your daily life to solve problems
• Possess programming experience in any language (C, C++, Python, Basic, JAVA, etc.)

While our Researchers all share a passion for creative quantitative problem solving, they work in three main areas with different focuses. In the application, you can select the role that appeals to you the most, and through the recruitment process, we will work together to ensure you find the area most suitable for you.    

• D1 Researcher

As a D1 Researcher, you’ll collaborate with traders and developers on live trading strategies using cutting-edge statistical and machine learning algorithms. You’ll work on building trading signals from the market or fundamental data, combine signals and optimise strategy parameters through our state-of-the-art backtesting infrastructure. Whilst the research uses a mix of statistics, computer science and economics, there are no textbook solutions to what you aim to solve. Instead, you’ll move beyond the theory to search for the hidden signals in the noise that’ll help you create profitable strategies. And that’s what makes it deeply rewarding.

Check out Nik's ‘Graduate Stories’ feature to learn more.

• Options Pricing Research

As an Options Pricing Researcher, you’ll be responsible for the creation and improvement of our underlying pricing models, as well as increasing our statistical understanding of the underlying dynamics that impact the market. You’ll also work with Traders to create and improve volatility surfaces, yield curves, and other quantitative elements of our automated trading systems. You’ll find creative solutions to problems, test those solutions with historical parameters and market data, and then drive these changes in our trading system to improve our ability to make successful trades.

Check out Noah's ‘Graduate Stories’ feature to learn more.

• Performance and Strategy Researchers

Whether you join as the Performance or Strategy Researcher internship, you’ll be developing and testing hypotheses experimentally, under real-world conditions and constraints, to drive improvements in our trading systems.

As a Performance Researcher, you’ll be using data science, reverse engineering, and computing fundamentals to improve the success of our trading systems. You could be building tools to optimise our low-latency strategies, utilising custom-built FPGA hardware, or analysing terabytes of systems and network capture data to process and discover hidden patterns.

As a Strategy Researcher, you’ll be leveraging our understanding of execution success and pricing to design and improve automated trading strategies. The scope of projects you’ll work on is broad, ranging from optimising strategy parameters to examining market data and finding new hidden market opportunities, to developing new strategies that capture these opportunities.

Check out Rob's ‘Graduate Stories’ feature to learn more.

What you'll get

• AUD $175,000 salary package, pro-rata
• Participation in our renowned training program, alongside diverse and intelligent peers in a rewarding environment.
• Training, mentorship and personal development opportunities
• Daily breakfast, lunch and an in-house barista
• Regular social events
• Work-from-home allowance and support
• Accommodation for the entirety of the internship, and flights where necessary.

As an intentionally flat organisation, we believe that great ideas and impact can come from everyone. We are passionate about empowering individuals and creating diverse teams that thrive. Every person at Optiver should feel included, valued and respected because we believe our best work is done together.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is hardwired through every stage of our hiring process. We encourage applications from candidates from any and all backgrounds, and we welcome requests for reasonable adjustments during the process to ensure that you can best demonstrate your abilities.

Eligibility

• A penultimate or pre-penultimate year university student
• Studying a highly quantitative or technically focused degree, such as Maths, Statistics, Physics, Elec / Mechatronic / Software Engineering, Computer Science, Applied/Quantitative Finance or Econometrics.
• An Australian or New Zealand Citizen, Australian Permanent Resident or able to provide evidence of full working rights for the duration of the internship

Does this sound like the future you’re looking for? Take up the challenge and apply today!

If you have any questions regarding this opportunity, please contact us at careers@optiver.com.au.