From FutureFocus to Optiver’s quant trading internship

FutureFocus is an educational program that gives students an inside look at the challenges our technology, trading, and research teams face everyday.

Research at Scale: Orchestrating ML for Systematic Trading

Adapted from a technical talk by Rob Hahn, this article explains how systematic trading relies on fast, reproducible research cycles and the engineering decisions that make those cycles work at scale.

Choosing between free threading and async in Python

As host of this year’s first PyAmsterdam Meetup, Optiver welcomed the local Python community back to our headquarters for an evening of tech talks, networking and knowledge sharing. To open the event, Optiver Senior Software Engineer and Team Lead Samet Yaslan delivered a timely talk for developers working on performance-critical systems: “Choosing Between Free Threading and Async.” Prompting his choice of topic was a recent change in CPython, as Samet explained: “Beginning with version 3.13, CPython introduces an option for a build known as free threading, where the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) is removed. The question is: With the GIL gone, do we still need async in Python?” Here’s how he breaks it down, and what it means for your next Python project.

Career Kickstarter Tech: The ‘why’ behind every trading system

At Optiver, our engineers work on some of the most advanced systems in the world, solving unique challenges that combine performance, efficiency and real-time decision-making. Our Career Kickstarter: Women in Tech program invites aspiring female-identifying engineers from across Europe to explore how their coding and problem-solving skills apply to real-world challenges in financial markets. We […]

Optiver EU campus recruiting Q&A

Interning on Optiver’s Austin HFT Team

Former software engineer intern Ethan shares what it was like to build production systems on Optiver’s Austin high-frequency trading team.

Why DevEx matters to Optiver

Optiver’s Global Head of Developer Experience, Cian Lane, shares how DevEx boosts productivity firm-wide: 30% faster CI builds and onboarding cut to minutes.

Breaking down the trading industry: Which role is right for you?

If you’re curious about a career in STEM, you’ve probably thought about big tech or academia–but have you thought about trading? There are many types of roles you might see, including quantitative trader, quantitative researcher, and institutional trader. While these might seem similar–all require strong analytical skills and mathematical thinking—the day-to-day work can look quite […]

From intern to new grad: Joining the team full-time

Over the last few years, Jason has shared what he was looking for in an internship, what he found, and what he learned. Now, as a full-time trader, he reflects on how it all comes together—and what’s next. What experiences from your internships influence your day-to-day work? So much of what I do today is […]

Continuing education: Interning abroad

By his second internship, Jason built a strong foundation with options theory and simulated trading. With real trading experience, his time in Amsterdam feels less like an internship and more like a preview of a full-time career. During your second internship, how did your experience change? My second internship was a truly unique experience. I […]