What first attracted you to Optiver?
I knew about Optiver from a guest lecture at University. I was impressed by the interesting things they presented during that guest lecture. Especially the part how they put the effort in reducing latency of the system and how much impact it has by simply choosing the correct data structure. Seeing the knowledge I learned from Uni being used in a complex system and having a huge impact, got me excited about the trading industry.
I got the chance to know Optiver better through the interview process. It was one of the best-designed interviews I had. I really liked the introduction session in between the behaviour and the technical interview. It gave me the chance to talk to new starters, who were grads a few months ago, and know Optiver from their eyes. But my favourite part was the technical design interview. It was challenging, but it felt more like an opportunity to work with senior developers from Optiver and come up with a solution together. We were having discussions about the solution I proposed and where possible improvements can be made. Everyone offered their opinion. I later found out this is how we work here; you can always make your voice heard and be a part of the decision-making process – even as a grad!
What does your role entail?
I got access to the production environment shortly after I started (after completing a basic training session), which meant that I was able to make a real impact on our system from the very beginning. At Optiver, we expect developers to take responsibility for their own project, which includes development, testing, deployment and support. But there’s always plenty of support you can get from your team and basically everyone in the company. As a grad, I never felt embarrassed to ask basic questions and was never afraid I won’t get an answer. I’m surrounded by talented people with their own specialties – any question you have here will get an answer.
What key skills are required?
We mainly use C++, C# and a bit of Python at Optiver. However, I never see this as a requirement. I’ve seen plenty of new starters who haven’t done much coding in those languages picking them up very quickly. We have very well-designed training sessions to help you get familiar with the language and our environment. On top of that, we also have study groups that are designed for developers from different levels to help you learn about new features of the language and how they are being used in our code base.
In my opinion, the only real requirement is your enthusiasm, curiosity to learn new things and ability to face new challenges. Besides coding, we also have lots of exposure to exciting trading knowledge, as well as to the rest of the system outside your team. It’s always exciting for me to learn about new things and cooperate with trading, research and other teams.
What are some of the projects you are working on (non-confidential)?
I did my first 6 months rotation in the market-facing team and then moved to the risk and treasury team. In my new team, I’m working on various capital-related projects, such as margin calculation system, cash monitoring system and our risk system. It’s a very exciting area of our business and there are always new things. Different markets have different requirements and calculations. Being able to understand the requirements and implement them into our system is part of my job. It’s very challenging and rewarding to go from specs to a product and maintain the quality and scalability of our codebase in the meantime.
How do you start your day at Optiver?
Everyone starts their day differently and you don’t have to follow a routine. For me, I normally check my email and slack messages to see if there’s anything urgent that needs to be handled. Then I spend a bit of time planning out my work for the day. I like to have a nice chunk of time to focus on my main project, and leave some time for smaller tasks, meetings, or just a random chat about some irrelevant projects from another team. It’s always good to improve your understanding of other parts of our system and it will pay off very quickly.
What do you love about your work?
The top two things I love about my work is:
What’s your advice to potential applicants?
I think Optiver is a great place to work. I found my passion here, made new friends, learnt priceless knowledge of the industry and moved to the next chapter of my life after University. If you are up for the challenge, you won’t miss your reward.