As our Quantitative Trading Intern, you’ll spend your summer tackling complex, quantitative problems at one of the world’s leading tech-driven trading firms. Under the guidance and mentorship of industry experts, you’ll apply your strong reasoning skills to design, develop and enhance our innovative trading strategies, fully immersing in the world of market making.
From derivative theory training to hands-on trading experience, you’ll have deepened your understanding of the quantitative trading industry by the end of the 8-week internship. Plus, if you’ve excelled over the summer, you’ll receive an offer to return as a Graduate Quantitative Trader.
Note: The internship program will be run out of our Sydney or Amsterdam office. Optiver will cover your travel and accommodation costs for the duration of the internship.
What you’ll do
Requiring a pragmatic mindset, logical problem-solving skills and mathematical precision, our internship is as close as you can get to a real trading experience. Led by our dedicated in-house education team that consists of ex-traders and engineers, our Quantitative Trading Internship offers you the opportunity to:
- Complete our curated series of lectures and coursework on trading fundamentals, covering topics such as options pricing, financial markets, trading strategies and cutting-edge technology.
- Apply your recently acquired knowledge in a simulated trading environment, trading options using live market data for a realistic hands-on experience.
- Analyse real historical data to develop your own algorithmic trading strategy and backtest to see how it performed.
- Learn directly from our team of full-time educators and current traders, gaining exposure to our various trading desks and experience the financial markets first-hand.
- Test your potential and accelerate your growth in a fascinating and high-performing environment.
Read Brent’s story to discover what it’s like to join Optiver as a quantitative trading intern.
What you’ll get
You’ll join a culture of collaboration and excellence, where you’ll be surrounded by curious thinkers and creative problem solvers. Driven by a passion for continuous improvement, you’ll thrive in a supportive, high-performing environment alongside talented colleagues, working collectively to tackle the most complex problems in the financial markets.
In addition, you’ll receive:
- A highly competitive remuneration package, including an attractive bonus structure and additional leave entitlements.
- Optiver-covered flights and accommodations for the duration of the internship
- Training, mentorship and personal development opportunities
- Daily breakfast, lunch and in-house barista
- Regular social events
Who you are
- We encourage Singaporean nationals to apply.
- Penultimate or pre-penultimate university student, with a graduation date of December 2026 to June 2028.
- Lateral thinker, with a passion for quantitative problems and working in collaborative, dynamic environments.
- Holds superior quantitative and logical reasoning skills.
- Interested in strategic games and/or competitive activities.
- Experienced in programming or scripting in Python a plus.
- May have an interest in trading or financial markets.
Diversity statement
Optiver is committed to diversity and inclusion.
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. Please let us know if you would like to request any reasonable adjustments by contacting the Recruitment team via [email protected].
Please note: Graduate return offers will be for our Singapore office. We encourage applications from candidates who are open to building their careers in Singapore long-term
We accept one application per role per year. If you have previously applied to this position during this season and have been unsuccessful, you can re-apply when the next recruitment season begins in 2027.
Skills Required
- Penultimate or pre-penultimate university student with graduation date December 2026 to June 2028
- Superior quantitative and logical reasoning skills
- Lateral thinker, comfortable working in collaborative, dynamic environments
- Experience programming or scripting in Python
- Interest in strategic games and/or competitive activities
- Interest in trading or financial markets
- We encourage Singaporean nationals to apply
Optiver Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Optiver and has not been reviewed or approved by Optiver.
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Career-Linked Recognition & Rewards — Pay is considered highly competitive in trading, quantitative, and engineering paths, with performance-linked bonuses materially elevating total earnings for strong contributors. High performers are described as seeing outsized upside when firm and team results are strong.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage is depicted as comprehensive, including medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance, alongside HSA/FSA options and mental-health support. Some locations note unlimited therapy access through a partner platform.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — U.S. roles are often described as offering 25 days of paid vacation plus market holidays, alongside generous parental leave. This breadth of time off is highlighted as helping to offset a high-intensity environment.
Optiver Insights
What We Do
Optiver’s story began over 30 years ago, when we started business as a single trader on the floor of Amsterdam’s options exchange. Today, we are at the forefront of trading and technology as a leading global electronic market maker, focused on pricing, execution and risk management.
Why Work With Us
People at Optiver love challenges, welcome collaboration, and strive to be better tomorrow than they are today. Improving the market is an extraordinary challenge that requires a carefully crafted approach. Optiver provides a collaborative working environment to tackle these challenges. In fact, it is this way of working that sets us apart.
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