got prop trading offer, keep recruiting?

I recently got an internship offer from a mid tier prop shop (i.e Akuna, Belvedere, CTC etc).  

I kind of just applied on a whim but now am pretty interested in the industry.  Should I try to pursue other firms?  More importantly, what firms are on the come up and doing well during these times?  

9 Comments
 

if belvedere... idk their process was so beat (recruiter sent wrong link to exam, so i had to do exam again, but it was the same?? wtf) i just stopped before the superday. i just couldn't take it seriously since they weren't, and i had an offer already so i didn't bother.

from people i've talked to, though, seems like a pretty chill place. one of my friends got the SA offer and recruiter sent FT offer letter (what the actual fuck?) and comp was pretty good for SWE. 

 
Most Helpful

Is it a trading position?

I think for internships you're fine going anywhere decent. But If it were FT positions, then YOU HAVE to keep on recruiting.

A friend of mine interned at a mid tier prop shop and got a return offer. For FT, he recruited again for other mid tier and top tier prop shops. He received 3 other offers and was able to negotiate the hell out of his compensation. Culturally he liked them all so he chose the highest bidder.

He's making nearly 350~400K (sign-on bonus included) as a first year and will proceed to make 200~250K the following years. That's pretty much the upper limit for someone straight out of college. Prop Shops just want talent and are willing to pay you obscene amount of money.

This is a side note, but from what I've heard from other friends in the Prop Trading space, I'd avoid Belvedere like a plague. Weird place, weird culture, and not very supportive of your career. Akuna is pretty cool I heard.

 

From what I know midtier and top tier Prop shops in NY mostly recruit from HYPS + MIT.  Props shops in Chicago recruit also from U Chicago, Northwestern, and WashU. But if you have a decent Putnam score(10+) then at least they'll be willing to interview you.

My friends and I went to top Midwestern school. All of us studied Math or CS + Math. Idk about GPA but I assume 3.7+ (not sure how important this is to Prop Shops, they probably don't really care if you have a stellar math competition score).

I'd like to emphasize that the top tier prop shops are run by bunch of math people who geek out on difficult math problems, calculate dice and card odds for fun, and engage in dick measuring contests comparing our Putnam scores. Of course there are exceptions.

 

I'd like to emphasize that the top tier prop shops are run by bunch of math people who geek out on difficult math problems, calculate dice and card odds for fun, and engage in dick measuring contests comparing our Putnam scores. Of course there are exceptions.

Yeah, I could definitely see that.  They can always teach you the finance fundamentals -- it's the excellent quant skills they're really after.  As someone who is majoring in engineering and will be doing an S&T internship next summer, are there certain interview-prep resources (apart from LeetCode), especially geared towards stats, programming & brainteasers, that you would recommend I study?  Cheers.

 

Culture is all extremely different. Profit wise, rankint is Akuna, CTC, Belvedere. 

Definitely keep recruiting. You can leverage the offer to get something better, along the lines of citadel, drw, optiver

 

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