Milan's move: From research to trading, then Sydney to Mumbai

Growing up in Sydney, Australia, I was very research-focused at school. I’d sign up for extra chemistry projects after class, do extra physics study and spend a lot of time on anything that felt like I was doing experiments.

Post-school I chose the very research-focused Australian National University in Canberra and studied a Bachelor of Philosophy. This is a flexible degree that let me swap out regular courses for research projects. So, instead of taking quantum mechanics as a standard subject, I did a quantum optics research project in a lab with a professor.

Having that kind of freedom taught me two important things about myself:

1. I’m fundamentally obsessed with understanding how things work; how something is put together and how it moves forward.
2. I like people: talking to them, stress-testing ideas with them, figuring things out together.

Later, back in Sydney, I interned with a tech firm and everyone there kept talking about Optiver. I hadn’t heard of it before. That got my attention. If a lot of very capable people were treating this new-to-me trading firm as their ideal place to work, I wanted to understand why.

The irony is that I didn’t have the most positive view of finance. I joke that I got dragged in kicking and screaming. So, when I did apply to Optiver, I joined as a performance researcher. That internship was engaging in a way that felt very familiar: explore data, interact with the market, figure out how things work.

Then I took part in a simulated trading course and my thoughts about my future career changed completely. Trading turned out to be this incredible system with a built-in dopamine feedback loop. When things go well, the highs are huge. When they go badly, the lows are just as tough. That mix of fast feedback, structure and intensity hooked me. I went from sceptical to fully absorbed in the trading process.

After a few years at Optiver in Sydney, the opportunity came up to help build out the India business. The firm decided to move its India operations from Singapore to Mumbai because India has this incredible talent pool – really smart people who want to live and build their lives there – and it just made sense to be part of it from the outset.

At first, not many people with families wanted to move. It’s a big leap to a new country with different culture and a lot of unknowns. If you volunteered early, like I did, you had a very real chance of being selected.

For me, it was less about travel and more about building something new. As my home town, Sydney is comfortable for me; life is easy, work is established, the machine runs smoothly. Mumbai was the opposite: initially there were around ten of us; now there are close to a hundred. Being there from the early days, helping create our own Optiver Mumbai identity, processes and ways of doing business, was incredibly rewarding.

India itself is intense in the best way. It’s loud, it’s messy and chaotic but it’s also one of the most exciting places on the planet right now. It’s the fastest-growing major economy in the world. You can literally see the transformation in people’s lives, hundreds of millions being lifted out of poverty. It feels like an important place to be.

Today my job follows a rhythm that combines everything I enjoy the most: maths, coding, experimentation and real-world impact. A typical week starts with a few days of modelling; taking some aspect of the world and trying to capture it with equations and structure. After that comes a day or two turning that model into code.

The rest of the week is spent testing: making sure the idea is correct, robust and actually improves the way we trade. I write a short research report to be sure that the idea is correct. And when I’m satisfied, I hit the green button to merge. Within a day or two, what I’ve built is live in production.

It feels a bit like writing a maths assignment, building a software project and completing a research paper, all wrapped into something that directly affects real markets.

One of the biggest reasons I’ve stayed at Optiver is the people. Everyone is incredibly driven, curious and always looking for opportunities to grow and the firm selects strongly. There’s no tolerance for callousness or rudeness.

That sense of community intensified in Mumbai. I live with four other traders; we’ve shared a house for a year and a half. We work together, eat together, argue over ideas together and somehow still haven’t had a real dispute. That says a lot.

If you’re considering a path like this, I think two qualities matter most. First, an eagerness to learn and being confident that you can understand difficult concepts, while humble enough to put in the work. And second, being good to work with. Being the kind of person you would want beside you on a tough day really does matter.

Beyond that, the biggest thing is to take chances. A lot in life comes down to skill, but a surprising amount comes down to luck. I think the way to make the most of opportunities is by putting yourself in situations where good things can happen; trying things, applying widely, giving yourself more and better chances.

That’s really how I ended up here. I followed what I cared about, took a risk on something I didn’t fully understand, and kept working at it. If that sounds like you, Optiver might be a journey worth taking.