Optiver Trading

"It's good that you're hired as a trader, but is the turnover high?"

At most prop shops turnover is slightly higher than you'd expect, just because they generally are much more lean than BB equivalents. Moreover, it's more of an eat what you kill type environment. It's not uncommon for people to be let go in their first month at some places, but that said, Optiver in Chicago has recently had a great track record. Based off their last couple recruiting cycles (done multiple times a year), the majority of traders are still there.

There is a degree of self-selection, so just because they've had low turnover recently doesn't mean that if you work there, you have a great deal of job security. If they don't think you can hack it, or you don't do well on the exams/classes, you'll be bounced.

"How is it compared to other prop trading firms?"

People always ask this question on this forum and I think frankly that's a difficult question to answer. Prop shops aren't like BB's, where the strength and reputation of their platform is driving their business. There are no clients, so to speak in prop shops, so their top priority is making money. Accordingly, the amount of marketing and generalizing how good a firm is is a LOT less significant. When you're trading, you aren't competing against your peers at your prop shop, but rather every other trader in the world in your space/product. You could be the best trader at your firm, and the worst oil trader in the world, or the second best trader at your firm, and the best trader in the world for what you do.

So overall it's hard to ask how it compares. I can say that their environment isn't unbearable, and generally it's a laid back group of people. Pay is great (as in upper management don't take most of what you make, like the larger trading shops like SIG), and the non-compete is fortunately not as completely debilitating as other places.

Working at a trading shop is all about fit. People generally say good things about Optiver in the Chicago trading world. It's a reputable prop shop who is often mentioned when talking about other heavy hitters - Citadel, DRW, IMC, and Spot. Again though, reputation really means shit, because at the end of the day, it's gonna come down to how smart you are. The majority of prop shops talked about on these forums will give you equivalent tools to trade. It's going to come down to how smart you are.