The greatest demand in the HFT space is for Quantitative Developers. These developers have strong programming skills and strong quantitative skills. A degree in Financial Engineering is helpful but degrees in CS, Economics, Math, Physics and Statistics will also be strongly considered. There are a few key areas of evaluation.
1. How you program: Are you strong in developing efficient real-time, multi-threaded, OO Code. Take note that you will get questions on Algorithms, design and how efficient your code is.
2. How do you think: The focus here is often to present problems that you should not be familiar with to better understand how you think. Are you logical in your approach, do you focus on the right aspects of the problems. Are you creative or linear in your solution.
3. How do you communicate: The evaluation on communication skills are the most subjective part of the meeting. You must ask good questions. If you are spewing out too much information with out asking questions then you will most likely get tripped up. Much of what these firms are looking for are candidates that are self aware and who do not over estimate their own abilities. If you do not know if you have answered the question, then ask "Did I answer your question?"
4. Do not get lost preparing by trying to impress them with your trading ideas and strategies. You will not be expected to walk in with deep financial skills and intimate knowledge of how the market works, unless you have applied for a Portfolio Management role.
Good luck!
Comments
Post a Comment