@dlwlrma
"From what I could gather, the place seems to be pretty collaborative across the desks (i.e. not as siloed as some other places) although I don't know what that means from a bonus allocation perspective."
I heard pretty much the same thing from one of my friends who work there. And according to him, interview questions are not hard at all. No fishing for signals involved. Perhaps it's to do with the fact that he's a junior quant.
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HitmanH
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- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2004 12:00 am
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Agreed on this.
The problem with Squarepoint is that they have a very mature and diversified business, and the best part of 400 headcount. They're also not new, having taken IP from Barclays with them - so there's a very good chance that if there is something - they've thought of it.
The aim is to add orthogonal alpha - so unless you can supply time series of daily returns - it comes down to these questions.
That means you have to show something different, in input, process (or ultimately result, which is hard ex ante) - and it has to be sufficiently different that it isn't minor incremental to what they do - so it's hard.
Not saying should open kimono on interview one - but it's hard on both sides
Oh - and they still do a lot of HFT & MM - although mainly in the Master Fund (Partners only / >90%_
The problem with Squarepoint is that they have a very mature and diversified business, and the best part of 400 headcount. They're also not new, having taken IP from Barclays with them - so there's a very good chance that if there is something - they've thought of it.
The aim is to add orthogonal alpha - so unless you can supply time series of daily returns - it comes down to these questions.
That means you have to show something different, in input, process (or ultimately result, which is hard ex ante) - and it has to be sufficiently different that it isn't minor incremental to what they do - so it's hard.
Not saying should open kimono on interview one - but it's hard on both sides
Oh - and they still do a lot of HFT & MM - although mainly in the Master Fund (Partners only / >90%_
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prikolno
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- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2004 12:00 am
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I agree with @loltrading on this.
I've come across the same issue on the other side when speaking to allocators, some of whom run their own CTA firms or are tightly affiliated with their own trading operation. There's various ways you can word it to give an effective presentation of your skills without giving away critical details: "This isn't exactly how we do it, but...", or "We tried various ways of doing it [that didn't work]: X, Y, Z," or "I can talk about this forever but in the best interest of time/duration for this interview, [insert high level teaser]."
As an interviewer myself I usually make sure the interviewee is aware that they can opt out of responding to some of my questions if they think it's a sensitive topic and that it won't be held against them. I also try to ask in analogues that are not a direct application of his/her knowledge, say if the interviewee says that he built a simulator for pro rata products on a centralized venue, I could ask how he'd think about building one to respect quote protection on US equities. I feel the interviewer has some responsibility too to make the candidate feel that you're not acting in bad faith.
I actually see a slight negative signal when a candidate responds curtly that "they can't talk about it" rather than knowing how to respond fluidly in broad strokes over the important details. Maybe it's because the more junior folks are less capable of discerning what's really "secret sauce".
I've come across the same issue on the other side when speaking to allocators, some of whom run their own CTA firms or are tightly affiliated with their own trading operation. There's various ways you can word it to give an effective presentation of your skills without giving away critical details: "This isn't exactly how we do it, but...", or "We tried various ways of doing it [that didn't work]: X, Y, Z," or "I can talk about this forever but in the best interest of time/duration for this interview, [insert high level teaser]."
As an interviewer myself I usually make sure the interviewee is aware that they can opt out of responding to some of my questions if they think it's a sensitive topic and that it won't be held against them. I also try to ask in analogues that are not a direct application of his/her knowledge, say if the interviewee says that he built a simulator for pro rata products on a centralized venue, I could ask how he'd think about building one to respect quote protection on US equities. I feel the interviewer has some responsibility too to make the candidate feel that you're not acting in bad faith.
I actually see a slight negative signal when a candidate responds curtly that "they can't talk about it" rather than knowing how to respond fluidly in broad strokes over the important details. Maybe it's because the more junior folks are less capable of discerning what's really "secret sauce".