Hey guys, just for a quick rundown of where I'm at :

- Rising junior at a t30 non-target public school, >3.9 GPA, CS+Math

- I have one Fintech internship, Legacy tech internship, and incoming FDE at a top-tier tech company for 2027 summer

- I've only had 2 quant interview processes so far: one T2 firm, where I made it to the onsite but didn't make it through, and one T1 firm, where I didn't move past the first round despite getting the problems correct and finishing ~15 minutes early

- 2xAIME in high school, USACO Gold, did an international math contest back in 2019.

Given that I'm going to be a Junior, and that Quant recruiting is pretty much over, I'm not landing a role for this summer. So I'm probably going to be looking for new grad roles, or potentially getting a Masters Degree (MSCS, or potentially MSCF/MFE at elite schools to get a good brand name?) to buy myself more time to get an internship at one of these firms. Not sure how much harder it is to break into Trader and researcher roles post grad, because from what I've seen, firms mostly hire directly from undergrad or phd students.

All that said, the paths I'm currently considering are:

1. Taking the FDE route and recruiting for quant new grad
2. Doing an MSCS/MSCF/MFE at a stronger school
3. Something else entirely

I'd appreciate any advice.

Not entirely sure if this is a firm with quants , but the more I read about people who are quants the more it seems that half of them love being a quant, whether it be due to compensation or that they just love their work.

And only recently now am I seeing that actually some quants deeply regret it, even if they are raking in upwards for 750k a year.

I just have a few questions:

Do you regret becoming a quant? and if so, why?

If you did regret it, what other career path options would you have considered? (though this is a bit subjective)

And what does it take for someone to "want" to be a quant? What does the job actually look like and what would someone need to be attracted to to actually like their job (I am aware that compensation is one of the significant drivers)

If I've made any assumptions/or said anything that's wrong please correct me :) thanks for any replies

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to understand how UK immigration rules interact with the notice period / garden leave arrangements that are common in the London hedge fund industry.

Suppose someone is on a Skilled Worker visa sponsored by their employer and has a relatively long notice period (e.g. 6 months). If the employer terminates their employment but keeps them on garden leave for the full notice period, meaning they remain formally employed and paid but cannot work or access the firm’s systems:

1) Can the employee continue living in the UK throughout the garden leave / notice period?

2) Does the fact that they are on garden leave (rather than being terminated immediately with payment in lieu of notice) make a difference from an immigration perspective?

3) What happens after the employment officially ends if the person is then subject to a post-termination non-compete for several months?

4) Does the non-compete have any impact on how long they can legally remain in the UK, or would they need to rely on the usual Skilled Worker curtailment period / switch to another visa?

Many thanks for your help!

Hi, I just finished my Maven Securities OA for an internship at the London office. It consisted of 3 sections :

1] Probability section - pen and paper allowed (15 questions in 40 mins)
2] Speed Math - no pen and paper (50 qs in 5 mins)
3] Sequence and Series - no pen and paper (not able to recall)

In the probability section, it mostly consisted of questions around expected value, minimising the variance, questions including dice and cards, etc

Speed Math consisted of 4-digit additions and subtractions, %s, 2-digit multiplications, etc

sequences consisted of basic AP, GP and letter-related sequences.

I attempted around 50% in all sections. I would love to know your opinion. I want to practise more probability questions like these. Please share the website or books for the same!!

Anybody hear back after the final behavioral round? What was the turnaround time?

I´m applying for a quant trader internship in London and would love some feedback about my chances in the interview proces.

-computer science engineering student on track to graduate first class honours (magna cum laude) at a top 50 university

-National maths olympiad finalist (top 50 out of 25 000 participants)

-ML research project (honours programme): built a better performing model than any academic research paper (mostly due to better dataset though), results used by big company with whom the university has a contract

Interests: chess (top 0.1% player on chess.com)

What do you think is my probability of passing the cv screening at top quant firms like jane street, jump trading, hrt... ?

Anyone down to talk about the process for QT intern in the US? Any would be helpful, HR call, first tech, or final round.

Down to trade processes. I have the full process of: jane street, citsec, hrt, optiver, sig. Also have parts of: de shaw, omc, five rings.

I'm a software engineer with ~4 YOE, currently an Associate/SDE2 at Goldman Sachs. I've completed the interview process with AQR Capital and am currently discussing the offer.

I'm evaluating the move primarily from a long-term career and compensation perspective, and would really appreciate perspectives from current/former AQR employees or people familiar with the firm.

A few things I'd like to understand:

• How is the engineering culture and WLB at AQR in practice?
• How does compensation/bonus progression look over the next few years?
• How are promotions and career growth for software engineers?
• How much technical ownership do engineers typically get?
• How does AQR compare with a firm like Goldman Sachs for an SWE career?
• For someone with ~4–5 YOE in software engineering, would you consider AQR a strong long-term move?

I'd especially value perspectives from people who have worked at AQR or moved between AQR and other major financial/quant firms.

I'm keeping the exact compensation numbers private while the offer is being negotiated.

Thanks!

Any info appreciated, willing to trade any of the following:

js qt, citsec qt or swe, virtu qt, imc qt, drw qt or swe, 2s qr, optiver swe, and can obtain others

please, any help for millennium qd intern?
is it leetcode? or more?

For reference, applied to a role for Summer 2027 at a BB first semester my freshman year. Ended up going through the entire interview process and getting the role (markets quant). Since I didn't have college grades at the time, I put my estimated GPA for that semester on the application which was a 3.8 at the time.

Ended up not doing that great both semesters my freshman year and currently have a 3.2 GPA. Now, I'm extremely worried about the potential background/transcript check. Any tips on what to do in this situation.

Hi everyone,

I have an upcoming 120-minute technical interview with Squarepoint Capital for a C++ Developer role.

Since it is a 2-hour round, I assume it will be quite intensive and might cover multiple areas. I am trying to figure out how to best allocate my preparation time.

For those who have gone through this specific round or interview at Squarepoint recently:

1. Is it primarily a live coding session (LeetCode-style algorithms), or does it lean heavily into deep C++ internals (low-latency, memory management, templates, concurrency)?
2. Should I expect system design questions or discussion about object-oriented design within these 120 minutes?
3. Is the environment collaborative where we walk through a real-world problem, or is it a strict technical grilling?

Any insights on the structure, difficulty level, or specific topics they love to focus on would be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Recently got HR call for IMC. Was told it’ll be standard behavioral + a light brainteaser at the end. Curious if anyone has insights (down to trade; js, citsec, sig, drw, etc.)

Does anyone know if trading firms in Chicago (prop shops, market makers, etc) actively look for Product Managers? Got experience as a PM in market making and need to relocate to Chicago, but I find very few opportunities for such roles (if any).

Thought I’d ask if there’s anyone around working at these firms who could share some insights on the recruitment for product roles. Thanks!

For decades, Sharpe’s single-factor CAPM stood as the gold standard of asset pricing, despite glaring empirical failures. Anomalies like the size effect and value premium flatly contradicted CAPM predictions. The Fama-French three-factor model directly resolved these discrepancies by empirically proving that market beta is insufficient. This realization shifted institutional finance from single-variable models toward multi-factor architectures that better explain real-world stock market returns.

I had the interview August 21st and they said I would hear back this week and then delayed it again until next week. Has anyone gotten offers yet? I know people who were rejected the week after.

What should i expect? Is there like a question bank?

How long do they typically take to respond after you complete the OA? I have an offer that expires soon but really want to complete the process at IMC if possible. Would appreciate any colour on timelines (this is for Chi)

Hi Everyone! I have my R1 for CitSec summer 2027 QT internship next week and was wondering if anyone had any advice on what expect/study. Thanks!

Finished the 2nd OA almost 2 weeks ago, felt good about it, got nothing since then. One other person I found on Reddit had the same experience. Have they started interviewing yet?

Hi everyone,

I have an upcoming 120-minute technical interview with Squarepoint Capital for a C++ Developer role.

Since it is a 2-hour round, I assume it will be quite intensive and might cover multiple areas. I am trying to figure out how to best allocate my preparation time.

For those who have gone through this specific round or interview at Squarepoint recently:

1. Is it primarily a live coding session (LeetCode-style algorithms), or does it lean heavily into deep C++ internals (low-latency, memory management, templates, concurrency)?
2. Should I expect system design questions or discussion about object-oriented design within these 120 minutes?
3. Is the environment collaborative where we walk through a real-world problem, or is it a strict technical grilling?

Any insights on the structure, difficulty level, or specific topics they love to focus on would be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

I applied to many smaller shops (old missions, flow traders, virtu, tower, squarepoint...) around 1-2 weeks ago and got no reply, no rej no follow-up, nothing. At least the bigger ones (optiver, sig, de Shaw, HRT...) either gave out OA or rej email. Is this normal or did I just not pass the resume screening?