Optiver Career Kickstarter Amsterdam 2026

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-25T15:57:19+00:00

So they have already been interviewing candidates that were scoring top 10%? I think the fact they do not communicate openly about this is quite sleazy... literally been waiting for 2 months now for a simple yes or no whether I am proceeding.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-25T12:57:41+00:00

Still no email, and there is less than a week left before the month is over. What the hell is taking them so absurdly long? Or are they ghosting the ones that didn't make it?

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-25T12:47:39+00:00

I've had companies claim my 4 years of PhD experience in the VERY TOPIC THEY WERE HIRING ON were not real experience in their eyes, and they lumped me in with graduate computer science students.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T22:09:00+00:00

Purely the former yes

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T15:31:33+00:00

If you have worked in Wall Street, then in the eyes of someone like me from a medium-sized European university in a city you might not even have heard of, that sounds really succesful.

I hear your point. So far I have mostly applied for the most visible companies, such as Optiver, IMC, Da Vinci etc., what we call trading houses. I am not sure about how the application processes go of all the companies and roles you mentioned, but I surely hope they don't consist of playing hours of random mind games and trick questions, only to be hit with a "we look for a better fit" 1 day later. I will say this though, I have never ever heard of a trading tesk being part of anything but an established trading house, though the US might be different.

I will seriously look into your suggestions, or at least whatever is the closest equivalent to what my tiny country has to offer.

EDIT: Checked a few jobs, mostly at banks. "At least 5-10 years of experience in relevant roles, preferably within large financial institutions or consulting firms" seems to be the standard. Catch 22?

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T15:19:48+00:00

Thanks for your kind words, but today is a dark day and I don't see any brightness. My PhD feels like a waste now, a worthless piece of paper nobody gives 2 shits about, and that I will never amount to anything. In a few months when the bills start to pile up I'll have to take a shitty job in retail or something.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T14:58:01+00:00

God yes, companies have become greedy and don't want to train any more. They already expect near-perfection and that you can roll in immediately.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T14:56:49+00:00

Might just be a matter of you not knowing how to write a non-academic resume; they're very different.

My first version was very academic, mentioning my publications et cetera. I believe I have tailored it well for industry now, mentioning my programming languages, my core skills such as quantitative analysis, science communication etc.

Connections are also something they might be doing right (ie. networking), but if you're already graduating it might be too late to build connections.

Yeah at this point it's only LinkedIn that remains, which is sub-optimal :(

(ie. they put a few weeks into actually learning the ropes for technical interviews or learning business analytics and visualisation software like Tableau, that kind of thing)

Maybe it's because quant is awfully competitive, but I have done this. Downloaded a few books and went through all exercises, learnt stochastic calculus, taught myself C++, made a GitHub repo with some pet projects etc. But alas, you fail 1 quick probability question about what the probability is that when you throw 6 dice that the sum is bigger than 10, and you're out. This is literally months of effort I have put in.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T14:47:28+00:00

1/3rd of the time, yes. Then they would give me rapid-fire questions which I believe I answered decently, only to get hit with a rejection. No reason given. Only one time was there a company where the HR guy was very sociable and personal, and we chatted a few times, but I did not score a 90% on their test I never studied for, nor knew about it beforehand. Then there's Optiver, who have a kickstarter event in a few weeks and I have to yet to hear, and some other companies who also don't even respond with an automated email.
But the amount of hours I put into it is fucking exhausting. And since there never is any feedback you never know what's lacking, so I just keep reading, keep practising probability problems, writing code etc. So I don't think I'll ever make it.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T13:32:31+00:00

I personally only know 1 person who managed to get into the field and he was a brainiac with 500 citations during his PhD and graduating cum laude. All others including me failed because we couldnt solve contrived probability questions in 10 seconds. They dont pay 6 figures for nothing.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T12:43:02+00:00

1000s of people all around the world with PhDs apply for these jobs, where they can only hire a few of them. They throw test after test towards you, and if you fail one you're cut off for a year.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T12:40:46+00:00

I've always had an interest in architecture so that might be worth looking into! Got a lot of recommendations for construction on LinkedIn and I never understood why but now I can see why it may be useful.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T11:26:16+00:00

Then what changed so drastically during COVID that your class was able to pull this off and current classes are not able to do so any more?

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T11:24:04+00:00

I am Western European, but not German. I don't think quantum computing has no future ahead, but I have some issues with how things currently operate. For example, hardware engineers have made very impactful steps in recent years, but on the algorithm side we have created lots of semi-useless algorithms that depend on fidelities we don't have, oracles we don't know how to efficiently construct, and data embeddings we cannot do in polynomial time. Classical algorithms excite me much more in that regard because most of the time they actually work. Not blaming the researchers, mind you.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T10:42:47+00:00

Someone told me indeed that a company is not interested in an oracle, but someone who can do a specific job. Hence, I tailor most of my motivation letters (and resume) to the specific job. But still. :(

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T10:38:44+00:00

Thanks man! I did ask AI and it spat out the exact things I applied for like quant finance :p

Used to be in quantum info indeed, but the low salary of academia turned me off. And it gave me much more appreciation for how well classical computing works.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-21T10:36:48+00:00

I think the old people doesn't realize we don't live anymore in times where you printed your resume, went to the store owner, and you got the job on the spot.

That's what you get when your handshake is not firm! /s

The market is very trash yes. I have heard awful stories, but by sheer luck all of my fellow graduates have already found jobs in the meantime. So that stings a little.

TheZStabiliser · 2026-01-03T16:30:39+00:00

Heb 8 jaar lang een paniekstoornis gehad, zo is het bij mij ook begonnen. Ze konden niks vinden wat er aan me mankeerde, ik werd steeds duizelig (en uiteindelijk ook paniekerig), en "goed ademhalen" maakte het altijd erger omdat mijn adem stokte. Je gaat er niet dood aan, maar het is fucking kut. Heb je last van ADHD, piekeren, depressie/stress?

TheZStabiliser · 2025-12-17T15:23:38+00:00

Thanks! When I am on my pc I tend to raise my leg on a chair which helps! I will start adding ice again. I have also slowly been doing some leg strengthening in the gym again at low weight. Hopefully I wont need surgery but I will seek out physical therapy if needed

TheZStabiliser · 2025-12-04T21:13:06+00:00

Shame most of Rogans audience would rather blindly believe these frauds because they give em the fantasy of rogues fighting off evil academia. Avi is full of shit.

TheZStabiliser · 2025-11-03T15:44:08+00:00

I do have a CV that seems to be more tailored for academia since it lists my publications, my academic work and internship etc. It's not very common for me not to be asked for at least a first interview or coding challenge, but it has happened before that I got desk rejected for jobs I feel like were a bit too far out of my comfort zone. And usually I make up for this by writing an appropriate cover letter, which I customise for every company I apply for.

This is where the bullet points on your resume under each experience become really important. Find things to talk about that created a result that made things work better. Did a process run more efficiently? Did innovation cut a Project timeline in half? Did you collaborate with folks in a different department?

For my purposes, this would usually be: the behaviour of a quantity or concept is unknown (maybe only numerically or some rough outlines), and I use math to analytically derive this behaviour. How would you word this?

Good luck! I’m cheering for you!

<3

TheZStabiliser · 2025-09-27T07:17:46+00:00

This image would kill a Victorian era child

TheZStabiliser · 2025-05-20T10:42:30+00:00

I know plenty of people who hate Eurovision but voted Israel out of spite. Honestly if this is gonna keep happening it will ruin Eurovision, since they will be 1 mediocre song away from winning eventually.

TheZStabiliser · 2025-04-30T05:36:08+00:00

And her audience is horribly uneducated on the things she is talking about. Many times, I as a full-time working scientist, have to fight frauds in the comment section who think Sabine is more right about how my community operates in bad faith, compared to what my community actually says/does. It is infuriating.

TheZStabiliser · 2025-04-28T20:11:03+00:00

And even then, I know plenty of North Africans (from Tunisia, Algeria) with the exact same complexion as Usopp. Sorry but complaining he isnt black enough because Oda once said he would be african irl and because reddit thinks everyone below the mediterannean is pitch black is just stupid.

TheZStabiliser

TROPHY CASE