Start your career in a place where your ideas are tested in real time. Working alongside engineers, traders and researchers, you’ll solve quantitative problems that evolve with the market and see your impact in live trading from the start. With support and training from our in-house Education team, you’ll quickly develop the skills needed to contribute to our systems, where your code, models and decisions directly influence trading outcomes.
All graduates begin with a 12-week program at the Global Optiver Academy in Amsterdam, training alongside peers from across our offices. Led by our dedicated in-house education team, consisting of former traders and engineers, you’ll learn how Optiver’s trading, research and technology systems operate in practice. Through a combination of core trading fundamentals and hands-on application, you'll build context early before moving into your role. After the academy, you’ll continue building on this knowledge within your local team, applying what you’ve learnt to the systems and problems you’ll be working on day to day.
“A lot of what I do comes down to understanding the problem and figuring out how to solve it, whether that’s fixing a system issue, improving settings, or building tools to better track performance. It’s very hands-on, and you see the impact of your work quickly.”
“As someone early in my career, it was a big step to go from studying to contributing to a fast-moving production system. It was challenging, but also energizing to be trusted with that level of responsibility so quickly.”
“In terms of expectations, I had three: trading, tech and networking. Since it's my first job, it was nice to get formal practical training. And I've lived in the same city for my entire life, so it was good to get a global perspective from people from different regions.”
Anca, a software engineer in trading systems, discovered early on that building for markets means rethinking how systems behave under real constraints. Through Career Kickstarter, she learned that in trading, the “right” solution isn’t always the most obvious one and that understanding the problem matters more than jumping to an answer.
Jason is a trader on the Treasuries team. Within his first year, he started exploring how the desk could trade new products, working with teammates to analyse historical data, build visualisations, and develop tooling to support decision-making. With real ownership early on, he’s been able to take initiative and shape work that others rely on.
