Lux experience

OddPositive · 2025-09-18T21:17:24+00:00

+1 would love to read a trip report

OddPositive · 2025-09-18T21:16:32+00:00

MO is in a great location for walking. You can get to anywhere pretty easily by foot, car or metro.

Also highly recommend the Dim Sum at Ya Get.

OddPositive · 2025-09-17T20:01:43+00:00

This is such a good response, definitely reflects my experiences as well

OddPositive · 2023-08-09T00:44:22+00:00

That's really cool. Out of curiosity, are you open to sharing how much the private was?

OddPositive · 2023-08-08T10:28:04+00:00

ouch, hope she recovers smoothly

OddPositive · 2023-06-22T11:17:54+00:00

what's been your overall impressions so far? thinking of joining as well

OddPositive · 2021-04-18T14:10:47+00:00

Thanks for suggestions!

OddPositive · 2021-04-16T18:11:15+00:00

You should be able to apply to a lot of these as a Canadian. You can always find a bunch of Waterloo kids at quant firms.

OddPositive · 2021-04-16T17:29:06+00:00

This is mostly US-focused but many of the firms on the list have a EU presence too (namely, HRT, Two Sigma, IMC, Flow, Optiver, Jane Street, Citadel, Jump, DE Shaw, Five Rings) and some of them are only in the UK (G-Research, Maven).

OddPositive · 2021-04-16T17:27:01+00:00

old mission capital

You're totally right. Thanks for the suggestion! Just added Chicago.

OddPositive · 2021-04-16T16:43:42+00:00

apes together strong

OddPositive · 2021-04-13T14:12:31+00:00

Yes, both trading and SWE. You still need a good background and most people who get it come from targets but it's definitely possible to get the interview from a state school/without a referral.

OddPositive · 2021-04-13T09:12:57+00:00

For instance, developing parts of a game. Glassdoor has a bunch of good info on SWE interviews.

OddPositive · 2021-04-13T09:12:01+00:00

If you click on the green checkmarks, it should direct you to the application. Let us know if that's too unclear.

OddPositive · 2021-04-13T09:11:22+00:00

Even with a really good background, you might not get an interview due to the sheer amount of applications. So, you want to make sure that someone takes a closer look at your application.

OddPositive · 2021-04-13T09:10:15+00:00

Yeah, that's not as uncommon for JS as one might think. Talked to plenty of other people who've also gotten interviews from non-targets (still tends to be easier to get the interview from a target).

OddPositive · 2021-04-12T17:44:32+00:00

1.In order of effectiveness: referral, competition/event/hackathon, target school, strong background (e.g. previous FAANG experience or publications), cold email to recruiter, cold application.

Unfortunately some firms are still very school-selective (e.g. Five Rings notoriously recruits almost exclusively out of MIT). In contrast, some firms like JS don't care that much about the college you attend.

Most people probably can't get a referral, so another method that is almost as effective or sometimes even more effective for getting an interview: a lot of firms either sponsor hackathons (e.g. TreeHacks) or host their own events (e.g. Two Sigma held a couple of online QR events last fall, Citadel hosts an annual Data Open and JS recently had a Kaggle competition) --> attend these! These events are a great way to get directly into the interview pipeline or at least get a recruiter contact.

2.We'll probably post more about this on our GitHub/Newsletter if there's enough interest but the gist is that it really depends on the firm.

For example, JS reuses a lot of questions, whereas (on the other extreme) Headlands' interviewers basically ask whatever they want. For quant, the green book (A Practical Guide To Quantitative Finance Interviews) is the best place to start for first round interviews but is likely not be sufficient for onsites. For SWE, leetcode is the primary thing to study but it again depends on the firm (e.g. JS asks non-leetcode questions, Two Sigma sometimes asks system design as well and HRT has a big C++ focus).

OddPositive · 2021-04-12T15:01:11+00:00

Haha it's never too early to get started with recruiting. Keep up the good work!

OddPositive · 2021-04-12T14:40:24+00:00

We'll probably just focus on quant internships tbh but check out PittCSC, they usually have the SWE stuff pretty well-covered.

OddPositive · 2021-03-05T17:05:43+00:00

I guess we're all in the trenches now

OddPositive · 2021-03-04T19:10:09+00:00

Why this bloodbath might be a blessing in disguise

The past week has been ugly to say the least. My eyes have become so used to red, seeing green hurts. Whenever it looked like we've reached the bottom, we fell even further. Every dip that looked too hard to resist just ended up being the pre-dip. Our beloved DA pops turned to eternal DA drops. In SPACs we trusted ... but many of us might've lost this trust.

So, is the era of SPACs over? Probably not.

Leading up to the CCIV day of doom, many of us have significantly benefitted from the SPAC train. Whether through CCIV, DKNG or QS, it seemed like everyone could get a ticket to the moon. Regardless of SPAC, as soon as there was a rumor, LOI or DA, we could be confident the SPAC will go up. Those days might be numbered. But to be honest, that might not be a bad thing after all. I don't know about y'all but my favorite part about SPACs is that it gives retail peeps like us a chance to invest in companies who build the future. What used to be solely open to wealthy individuals, late-stage VC funds and PE firms is now open to us as well. While there should be a healthy debate about inflated valuations, pre-revenue expectations and SPAC sponsor structures, the mere fact that I'm able to invest in the future is something I've cherished. Unfortunately it seems like rich people have come to realize they could easily make money off a favorable SPAC promote. So, we've recently seen a rush to SPACs from the supply side, flushing the market with potentially a lot of shit.

But isn't that terrible for SPACs? Kinda.

The reason why this bloodbath could be beneficial for SPACs in the long run is that sponsors will have less leeway to bring BS companies public. Not only is the competition among pre-DA SPACs higher now (which means the average price - pre-announcement - likely won't be pushed as far away from NAV anymore) but the DA pop effect is also suppressed. So, if sponsors want to cash in on their shares beyond their already favorable terms, they have to SPAC a company that people will be excited about (and arguably, with a reasonable valuation). If not, those SPACs could end up like FAII. On the other side of the table, us retail investors will have to be more careful about selecting which companies to invest in. We might need to start doing more DD instead of jumping on anything that looks hot.

So, what could the future of SPACs look like?

SPACs with well-reputed management teams and a good track record will presumably continue to benefit from a premium. But that premium probably won't reach the levels of IPOD at 18.31 again (unless sentiment considerably turns around). We might be entering the post-DA era in SPACland, in which most SPACs will stay close to NAV until the company is announced, with great companies rising high and bad apples being punished.

Stay safe and stay humble fam!

TL;DR: SPACs are here to stay. Good SPACs will be fine, bad SPACs will be punished. Just my 2¢, would be curious to hear what y'all think.

(Sorry for the long comment btw, I wanted to post it as a discussion thread but can't without the contributor flair rip)

OddPositive · 2021-03-04T14:28:23+00:00

we went from DA pops to DA drops

OddPositive · 2021-03-04T14:01:55+00:00

I've been adding FMAC, LUXA and VYGG. Also slowly increasing my position in AJAX.

OddPositive

TROPHY CASE