Selina

Software Developer

What’s your background? What did you study?

I graduated with a Bachelor of Computer Science from University of New South Wales.

What sparked your interest in working for a trading firm over a technology firm?

Generally speaking, the feedback loops are much faster here and there is more flexibility when deciding which projects to work on. I applied to various tech firms for graduate roles. During the interview processes, I asked them what impact I could make as well as what the software development cycle will be like. According to what they said, it may take weeks, even months to deploy and rollout a new feature, since features may require multiple rounds of feedback and tweaks. In comparison, efficiency and speed have much more significance at a trading firm. Once we understand the requirements from the traders or other stakeholders, we design and deploy the features into a pilot environment and get feedback from them.

Tell us about your experience in the Graduate Software Developer Program?

On the graduate program you immediately work on a project that provides value to the business. This means from very early on you get to see the impact of your work. My project was to create a chat bot that would respond to urgent alerts by posting them to the relevant user group.

I have been assigned a senior software developer as my mentor who supports me around the goals I want to achieve in my career. They also guide me through internal systems and my day-to-day tasks and projects. In addition, all the team members are friendly and willing to answer my questions. What’s more, there are technical talks to introduce each team’s high-level software architecture.

Tell us about a typical day for you?

I normally arrive in the office around 8:30 a.m., and I will check emails to ensure I keep an eye on the urgent events and the schedule I am going to work on for today. This may include any feedback on recent pilot releases. As we run a highly iterative development lifecycle there are often tight loops of user feedback and changes.

Then, I will grab breakfast in the kitchen. SIG provides a variety of breakfast, including yogurt/fruit salads, and more. Since morning is the most efficient time for me, I will normally spend most of the morning writing code/debugging/testing. I will prioritise the tasks that need to be tested when the market is open.

Around 12:30 p.m., I will have lunch with my colleagues and then go for a short walk near the Barangaroo Reserve. In the afternoon, I will continue debugging/testing. We also do daily checks of our systems to make sure everything is performing as expected and I set off for home around 5:20 p.m..

How would you describe the growth you’ve seen in your time at SIG?

My growth here is steady and fast. I started from working on a small project and I’m gradually getting more familiar with the whole development cycle. Now I am responsible for a larger-scale project and am more involved in the system design. I am improving on talking to multiple stakeholders to understand their requirements. I am also taking care of applications in production, so I am beginning to understand use cases that I have never thought about before which happen in production.

What do you like best about working at SIG?

Definitely the working culture! Everyone here is super friendly and super willing to help. There is not too much hierarchy here and people are easy to reach out to. I have found the people at SIG really friendly and willing to listen to my questions patiently. There is also more exposure to the whole internal system, compared to my internship experience with another firm, and I can get more mentorship from people around me. Also, we attach a lot of significance to work life balance here at SIG.

What projects and experiences have been most rewarding so far?

I was given a project which I was working on with support from my mentor. The application was firstly used by only a small range of users within our team. After several iterations and discussing with other teams, the application is now used across different teams. The most rewarding experience from it was the ability to carry out the project independently. Starting from proof of concepts and collecting feedback from the stakeholders. Then, fully implement the applications meeting the users’ requirements and collecting feedback again.

What three pieces of advice would you give to a graduate interviewing at SIG?

My most important piece of advice is to be yourself. Showing who you really are in the interview is crucial, as the interviewers are your future teammates Second, polish your technical skills. When interviewing for a graduate software engineer role, it is important to show solid understanding of technical knowledge and system design skills. Last, show enthusiasm and interest in the company as well as trading by asking some insightful questions.

Joseph

Quantitative Trader

What’s your background? What did you study?

Joseph, HK Equities Options Trader.

What inspired you to pursue trading?

I have a university background and interest in both maths and finance, and trading presented a great opportunity to work in a fast-paced environment and a field that applied both.

What is your favourite thing about SIG?

I enjoy the entrepreneurial approach to trading at SIG. Traders are encouraged to come up with their own ideas and are helped to execute and evaluate them afterwards.

Additionally, SIG’s focus on the decision-making process and decision science when evaluating trading is very refreshing; it minimises the luck from trading when assessing decisions.

Finally, good communication is beneficial, there is a lot of benefit to being able to clearly communicate your decision process as well as understanding and react to feedback on the fly.

What does a typical day look like at SIG?

I start my day looking through overnight news alerts and emails from our Equity Research team, with a call one hour before trading with the team to discuss desk-specific events in more detail and do any project work I have.

From there I would look at market moves in the US and Europe and discuss any trading situations we have on the day with the rest of the desk.

Once the market opens, I am focussed on trading, and we use the HK market lunch break to flag any situations arising and gameplan for the post-lunch session.

After the close, we will have a desk huddle and recap our trading day to send to the rest of the firm.

Are there any specific skills or qualities that are essential to succeed at trading?

Trading allows for you to both showcase and capitalise on a wide range of skills. You will need a solid knowledge base in maths, including probability and distributions, plus an ability to quickly assess situations. Experience in competitive environments like sports or strategy games, can help an individual thrive in the fast-paced world of trading.

Furthermore, being generally inquisitive and enjoying assessing and solving complex problems is valuable, as well as an entrepreneurial mindset and an ability to lead projects.

How do you handle the stress of high stakes trading in your job?

While expectations are high at SIG and trading can be stressful by nature, the office culture is supportive rather than piling on pressure to perform.

I find keeping active helps me to relax as well, rock climbing and golf are my sports of choice.

What does typical career progression look like at SIG?

The trading intake starts with 6 months on-desk in Sydney, where you will learn about basic options and trading theory. From there you will join other Quantitative Traders at SIG’s US headquarters for 8-12 months, where you will further your trading education, culminating in SIG’s 10-week trading class. You would then be a junior trader and assigned to a desk.

Charles Sutherland

Quantitative Trader

Every day is a genuinely new and interesting challenge, much more so than I’d ever anticipated.

Your degrees are in Maths and Engineering. What led you to trading?

I was interested in trading but didn’t know much about it. I went into consulting after graduation, but I soon felt that it wasn’t right for me. Around this time, I spoke with a friend from University who was a trader at SIG, and I decided to apply. I had been interviewing at another financial services firm when I got my offer. When the other firm also spoke really highly of SIG, I knew I was making the right decision to join.

Tell us about your experience in the global Quantitative Trader program.

The program is a mix of training on the desk, in the classroom, and in mock trading sessions. Our classroom training covered basic theory as well as introductions to trading, product structures, and poker. When I found out I had been selected to go to the US for additional training, I was pretty excited. Everything is bigger at the HQ and the wealth of knowledge to draw upon is immense. Our poker classes were taught by WSOP winners and the owners of the firm were right there on the trading floor. I originally went to the US for 9-12 months of training, but that quickly turned into 18 months, which morphed into 3 years. After completing the initial training I stayed on in the US as a full-time trader, managing books in both single stocks and later indices. This took my experience to a whole new level. Throughout it all, I’ve worked with a bunch of really smart, impressive people all pursuing a common goal. It’s been great.

You’ve now returned to Sydney. What have you been able to bring back to the office from the experiences you had in the US?

So much centres around the relationships I built in the US with business and technical teams. We’re thinking differently about how we trade and make decisions, how we employ technology, and continuing to maintain relationships with the exchanges and brokers we interact with daily. I’ve been able to help design new technical solutions that we’re implementing and participate in market making forums, which have been fascinating.

Tell us about a typical day for you.

Before the market open, I read about market happenings overnight to prep for the day. I’ll set up for the day – deciding how I want to set vols and if we have any axes. We’ll also collaborate with research analysts and discuss the plan for the day across the desk. After the open, my focus is on trading, talking to brokers and collaborating with each other about particular trading decisions. After the close, we’ll debrief on how the day went and talk about what we could improve upon and/or change in how we approached our decisions.

How would you describe the growth you’ve seen in your time at SIG?

My career at SIG has taken different paths – from Sydney to the US and back. When I first started, I supported and shadowed traders. I continued to grow my knowledge on the desk and in the education program and attended the market making class where I learned SIG’s proprietary strategies. After class, I took on my own book to trade, the size and complexity of which continues to grow. I’ve also worked on non-trading related projects. The opportunities I’ve had to learn and grow are limitless. Prior to joining SIG, I didn’t even know this type of job existed and I feel pretty lucky to have stumbled upon it. Every day is a genuinely new and interesting challenge, much more so than I’d ever anticipated.

Shiyun Zhang

Graduate Software Developer

I’ve always been interested in learning new technologies, and SIG has been great in facilitating this for me.

What drew you to consider a career at a trading firm versus technology firm after University?

I participated in an electronic trading competition in my final year at university, which got me really interested in trading. I loved the combination of computing, finance and mathematics. A friend then told me about SIG so I went to the firm’s website and applied. Of the offers I had, SIG was the only trading firm I considered. I decided to join because of the exposure I’d get to different teams and the opportunity to learn more about finance, the markets and how exchanges operate.

Tell us about your experience in the Graduate Software Developer Program.

I was very excited about the opportunity to rotate into different teams. My first rotation was in risk, where I used C#, XML, and WPF and worked on projects that focused on front-end UI and back-end data processing. Next, I rotated into our connectivity team, which focuses on getting data from exchanges to SIG and sending orders back to exchanges as fast as possible. Here, I’ve worked with C++, Python, Linux libraries and multiple networking protocols (like TCP, UDP and multi-cast) on projects that ensure the speed and reliability of the systems that facilitate this data transmission.

We talk a lot at SIG about our lack of focus on titles. How would you describe the growth you’ve seen in your role?

I’ve always had a lot of autonomy in my work and was trusted to put code directly into production pretty quickly after moving through my rotations. Additionally, the projects I’ve worked on have been pretty impactful. One that stands out is an app I wrote to synchronise files between different servers quickly and reliably. SIG has servers all over the world and if we want files to be on two systems in real-time and in sync, my app has to be used to achieve that. That’s pretty cool.

Tell us about a typical day.

I’ll collaborate directly with our trading systems support teams, the traders and other engineering teams to deliver solutions to any production issues before the market opens. From there, I’ll work on projects I’m assigned. Recently, I’ve had a chance to get some international exposure as well, which has been great. I’m working on a project to migrate solutions to our office in Sydney from our HQ in the US to ensure we’re continuously able to optimize our trading and data transmissions systems and infrastructure. I’ve had to read a lot of documentation and have been able to partner closely with my counterparts in our US to learn from them and brainstorm solutions. It’s been great to get that international exposure and to work on something that will help to facilitate future application migrations and support

Michael Freeman

Quantitative Trader at SIG

Education and collaboration culture is great. I enjoy doing quantitative analysis and running trading tools for the team.

What sparked your interest in joining a company like SIG?

I was interested in mathematics and strategy, and felt that trading would be an area that would allow me to pursue these interests and learn to make optimal decisions in a competitive, fast-paced environment. SIG is a place where all of these things are part of my education and my day-to-day career.

What made you decide to join SIG?

The focus on education and the opportunity to train with other quantitative traders overseas in the US for an extended period of time. I like that the goal of the education program is to fully prepare me to be a trader upon my return to Sydney.

What was your interview like?

For SIG, the interview process is very technical with emphasis on probability, maths and game theory questions. Be prepared.

Can you walk us through what your typical work day looks like?

I arrive at work prior to market open to study overnight market moves. Myself and the other graduates then usually have a class where we practice mock trading/play poker. During the day I analyse markets with my team and assist in operational tasks, while also working on markets theory as part of the education program.

What projects and experiences have been most rewarding so far?

The most exciting and rewarding times are when markets are busy. These times can be stressful and require fast-paced decision making. I also enjoy helping other traders by providing both qualitative and quantitative information to assist their decision making.

What do you like best about working at SIG?

The education and collaboration culture is great. I enjoy doing quantitative analysis and running trading tools for the team. I also enjoy the process of learning more about the markets each day.

What three pieces of advice would you give to a graduate interviewing at SIG?

I think most importantly, pursue a role you enjoy because you should be able to look forward to coming to work every day!
When you find something you’re interested in, ask as many questions as possible (career fairs, employer events) to help you make your career decision.
During networking and interviewing processes, be yourself. Most company representatives can tell when you are putting on an act to appear like a strong candidate. Just be yourself.

Tom Du

Equity Research Analyst

Theme: Fast paced problem solving

What’s your background, what did you study?

I majored in Finance and Economics at university. I’ve worked at SIG for about a year now and have really enjoyed the experience so far!

What sparked your interest in working for a trading firm?

While I was in university, I competed in a lot of stock pitch and business case competitions. I really loved the thrill of competition, the sense of camaraderie, and the process of working in a team to solve complex problems. While I wasn’t sure of the exact career I wanted to pursue, I knew that I wanted to go into a role with those kinds of attributes. When I found out about the type of work in a trading firm, it felt like a great fit for my interests: the fast-paced nature of the work, the collaborative environment, the quick feedback loops, and the interesting problems all really appealed to me.

Tell us about your experience in the equity research program.

The Equity Research Analyst role is all about helping our traders gain an advantage in the markets. We do this in a few ways such as recommending trades on breaking news, determining how information is disseminated, and providing valuation and analysis on situations in the markets. We try to understand what factors are driving price movements and ensure that our opinions are reflected in products that we trade, particularly in options. The program starts off with an education program that covers options theory before working on the desks on research projects and later getting assigned a coverage area of stocks.

Tell us about a typical day for you.

In the morning when I get to the office, I’ll first catch up on the overnight news flow and send a recap of any impactful news to traders. Before the market opens, we have a discussion on the desk to discuss potential trading ideas that we can action.

When the market opens, I’ll actively monitor headlines for breaking news that can impact products we trade as well as respond to any questions traders might come up. Sometimes a piece of news might break, and we’ll work quickly to understand its implications and act on potential trading opportunities.

When the market is quieter, I’ll typically be working on projects such as preparing for future events like an earnings announcement or potential catalysts that can affect a company. After the market closes, we’ll reflect on any situations that played out during the day and send out a recap to analysts and traders in our other offices.

Are there any skills or qualities that are essential to succeed in Research at SIG?

I would say that the key qualities essential to succeeding in research at SIG include a strong interest in the markets, the ability to think about problems critically, as well as being curious. It’s also important to be able to learn from mistakes. There will always be times where we miss out on an opportunity, or a trading opinion doesn’t play out as expected, so being able to reflect on how to improve for the future is important.

How would you describe the growth you’ve seen during your time at SIG?

The growth I’ve seen during my time at SIG has been quite fast and I continue to learn every day. Research Analysts at SIG are given quite a lot of responsibility from early on, and there is a lot of autonomy and flexibility to work on different projects that interest you. When I joined, I wanted to learn about a lot of different products across many markets, and within my first few months, I was able to work on projects spanning the commodities space, Australia and Hong Kong option strategies, Japanese and Korean equities, and macroeconomic projects. I currently cover equities in the Asia-Pacific region, and really like the fact I can learn about a lot of different industries.

What do you like best about working at SIG?

The culture. People at SIG have a great sense of humour which makes the experience of working here a lot of fun. SIG also has a flat structure, there are no formal titles and people are very friendly. You can reach out to anyone, and they will be willing to help you out.

What projects and experiences have been most rewarding so far?

I think the most rewarding experiences are the ones that involve analysing a complex trading situation and recommending a trade that works out well. Every situation is different, and it’s always rewarding to see your decisions play out accurately in real time.

What three pieces of advice would you give to a graduate interviewing at SIG?

1: Keep up to date with what’s going on in the markets – whether it’s through investing in your own account, following news on your favourite companies, or reading news and seeing how it impacts the market.

2: Be inquisitive. Demonstrate your ability to think critically about different pieces of information, to dig deep into problems, and to come up with insights that others might not consider.

3: Being able to get across your ideas clearly and concisely is important in a trading floor – so that’s something that is also important to demonstrate in the interview process.

Robert Chin

Quantitative Trader

Theme: Data and strategic decision making

What’s your background? What did you study?

I took courses in Economics and Mechatronics Engineering at The University of Melbourne. I then studied a joint PhD program between The University of Melbourne and University of Birmingham, where I was affiliated with the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments. My research topic specialised in the realm of control engineering and mathematical optimisation.

What sparked your interest in working for a trading firm over Academia?

Reflecting on my academic background, a common theme would be that of systematic decision making – whether it be human or automated. So there seemed like no place better than a trading firm where that happens a lot in actual day-to-day practice. Doing research at a trading firm, the feedback cycles also tend to be faster than in academia, so there’s never a dull moment and you can switch projects with a quick turnaround. I also regarded there to be better prospects for early-career progression and stability, working in industry generally.

Tell us about your experience in the Graduate Quant Research Program.

I joined SIG during COVID lockdowns, so my onboarding consisted of 3 weeks of Zoom classes on options trading basics. After that, I went straight into doing research and learning on-the-job. When borders opened though, I was able to travel to the SIG’s US headquarters in Bala Cynwyd, near Philadelphia. There, I spent roughly 2 months going through a dedicated Quant Researcher training program, where we were taught different datasets and tools used in research at SIG, as well as additional machine learning and options pricing theory.

Tell us about a typical day for you.

I can normally be found working on my current research projects. Projects typically involve putting data through backtesting or analysis pipelines, then scrutinising the outputs for the purpose of evaluating a strategy or validating a hypothesis. In the early stages of a project, I may be thinking more about the project’s scope, methodology, and ways to innovate on our trading strategies. Throughout the project, I could also be documenting the results and sharing them with the team or chatting with developers and traders about strategy implementation and deployment. Occasionally, an ad-hoc idea or question might arise, which allows me to run a quick study on that.

Are there any specific skills or qualities that are essential to succeed in Research at SIG?

We work with data on a daily basis, so overall savviness and intuition when reasoning about data is naturally needed. Projects may also require their own specific domain knowledge, from how particular financial instruments work, to how exchanges disseminate their high-frequency market data. It helps to have the resourcefulness to pick that up and apply any new assumptions to the analysis. The teams of trading, technology, research are all stakeholders of the trading system, yet each group differs in expertise. Collaborating effectively across these areas is essential, so it’s important to be able to communicate well between them.

How would you describe the growth you’ve seen in your time at SIG?

There’s certainly been growth in the impact of my work. The first few projects I worked on didn’t have much consequence to SIG’s trading, although I still learned a lot from doing them. My more recent projects however have gone on to affect SIG’s trading strategies in a very core way via a component of our option pricing model. The research I do now leverages earlier work, whether it be re-using some older code or an analysis technique. Over time, I’ve also gained familiarity with our quant tools and datasets. As a result, my efficiency in doing research has also grown.

What do you like best about working at SIG?

I’m enjoying the opportunity to tackle complex quantitative problems that aren’t always well-defined to begin with. For instance, we may be trying to determine whether some perceived effect in the markets is real. Given the noise inherent to financial markets, the approach is not always clear-cut, often requiring creative and critical thinking. It’s a blast working with terabyte-scale datasets and having the computing resources to process them effectively. The culture at SIG is also incredibly collaborative. It feels like every team wants every other team to succeed, across different business units and even across offices.

What projects and experiences have been most rewarding so far?

A few projects have involved collaboration with the US team, where we’ve adapted some of their findings over to APAC markets. It’s then always an exciting yet nervous time watching a strategy that you’ve worked on enter production trading. The most rewarding feeling is monitoring those strategies and seeing them perform as expected from backtests and pilot tests.

What three pieces of advice would you give to a graduate interviewing at SIG?

1: Show your maths ability: Brush up on any maths skills which may have become rusty over time.

2: Think logically and strategically under uncertainty: Fun fact, SIG was founded by poker players who favoured thinking logically and strategically. in the face of uncertainty. This is helpful information to guide your expectations of the interview process.

3: Be bold in your questions and thoughtful in your answers: The way you ask and answer questions shows your thinking process, so consider what you are showing about yourself through the way you choose to tackle a question.

Harry Crimmins

Quantitative Trader

Theme: Collaboration and variety

What’s your background? What did you study?

I did a pure mathematics PhD before joining SIG. My thesis was on applications of probability theory to chaotic dynamical systems. While the subject matter of my PhD is not something that I regularly use at work, the research and abstract problem-solving skills that I developed during my PhD are indispensable tools that I still use every single day.

What sparked your interest in working for a trading firm over Academia?

Trading firms have no shortage of hard research problems to solve, which is not unlike academia. However, doing research at a trading firm is much more collaborative than in academia. While you may be the expert on a particular topic in the office, you will still be in constant discussion with other researchers, traders, and technologists about your work. In contrast, I found doing a PhD to be quite isolating – mathematics is so diverse that most mathematicians only have surface level familiarity with each other’s work. Also, in an academic career one has plenty of non-research responsibilities (e.g., teaching, administrative responsibilities). Quantitative researchers at trading firms are able to spend most of their time focussing on research. Lastly, research at a trading firm has a fast and tangible impact on the business compared to the very long peer-review process in academia.

Tell us about your experience in the Graduate Quant Research Program.

I was well supported during the onboarding experience. At the very beginning, I spent a few weeks doing a course on options theory, all while participating in social events with grads and attending weekly poker lessons. Over time, I was given increasingly difficult projects, and later I was invited to visit the headquarters in Bala Cynwyd, near Philadelphia to attend an intensive course for quantitative researchers. There I met with many senior quants from our US business, attended lectures on SIG’s options trading stack, and worked through several mock studies from different business areas. Attending that course was definitely the highlight of my first few years at SIG, and the connections I made there have served me well since returning to Sydney.

Tell us about a typical day for you.

There is never a typical day! At times I can be solely focused on a single longer-term project, while on other days I will be jumping between meetings and answering ad hoc research questions from traders or investigating the performance of improvements to our strategies. Having said that, I generally start the day by trying to talk to people in the Bala Cynwyd office while our office ours overlap. I will then dive into whatever project is my current focus - this could involve building datasets in preparation for doing a study or creating a model, interrogating data to build signals to improve our production trading strategies, or checking that a new model has been implemented correctly before it is released into production. Often, I will have to talk to traders before the markets open to discuss ongoing projects. Meetings with other quants and teams can be scattered throughout the day.

Are there any specific skills or qualities that are essential to succeed in Research at SIG?

Aside from statistics and programming skills, I think good quants are thrifty, open-minded, and very curious, with a bit of a competitive streak. Our goal is to get to the truth of problems as cheaply as possible, and then to convert that truth into something tradeable – all the mentioned skills help in the pursuit of these goals.

How would you describe SIG’s growth, since you joined?

The firm has big ambitions for APAC markets, and consequently the Sydney office has been growing at a rapid pace. The atmosphere in the office is one of excitement and anticipation – nobody expects the work to be easy, but everybody is raring to do their bit.

What do you like best about working at SIG?

I enjoy the intensely collaborative and cross-disciplinary environment in which we do research at SIG – to get to the bottom of a particular question may involve talking to traders, operations, quants, or a variety of technologists to understand how each detail impacts the strategies that we are running. The work is also very challenging, which makes success all the more rewarding.

What projects and experiences have been most rewarding so far?

I’ve worked on a few projects that started as solo ventures building a model for a specific trading need that then evolved into collaborations with tech and trading in order to implement the model and incorporate it into our trading strategies. Seeing projects evolve from a simple concept to a fully-productionised component of a profitable strategy is incredibly rewarding, and it is a great feeling to have the support of your colleagues throughout the whole process.

What three pieces of advice would you give to a graduate interviewing at SIG?

1: Brush up on basic probability theory and statistics.

2: Make sure you understand some basic financial concepts. For example: how does an order book work, what is a call, what is market making and why would anybody be a market maker.

3: If you have any questions for us, make sure you ask them! We want people to comfortably be making an informed decision when joining the firm.

Selina

Software Developer

What’s your background? What did you study?

I graduated with a Bachelor of Computer Science from University of New South Wales.

What sparked your interest in working for a trading firm over a technology firm?

Generally speaking, the feedback loops are much faster here and there is more flexibility when deciding which projects to work on. I applied to various tech firms for graduate roles. During the interview processes, I asked them what impact I could make as well as what the software development cycle will be like. According to what they said, it may take weeks, even months to deploy and rollout a new feature, since features may require multiple rounds of feedback and tweaks. In comparison, efficiency and speed have much more significance at a trading firm. Once we understand the requirements from the traders or other stakeholders, we design and deploy the features into a pilot environment and get feedback from them.

Tell us about your experience in the Graduate Software Developer Program?

On the graduate program you immediately work on a project that provides value to the business. This means from very early on you get to see the impact of your work. My project was to create a chat bot that would respond to urgent alerts by posting them to the relevant user group.

I have been assigned a senior software developer as my mentor who supports me around the goals I want to achieve in my career. They also guide me through internal systems and my day-to-day tasks and projects. In addition, all the team members are friendly and willing to answer my questions. What’s more, there are technical talks to introduce each team’s high-level software architecture.

Tell us about a typical day for you?

I normally arrive in the office around 8:30 a.m., and I will check emails to ensure I keep an eye on the urgent events and the schedule I am going to work on for today. This may include any feedback on recent pilot releases. As we run a highly iterative development lifecycle there are often tight loops of user feedback and changes.

Then, I will grab breakfast in the kitchen. SIG provides a variety of breakfast, including yogurt/fruit salads, and more. Since morning is the most efficient time for me, I will normally spend most of the morning writing code/debugging/testing. I will prioritise the tasks that need to be tested when the market is open.

Around 12:30 p.m., I will have lunch with my colleagues and then go for a short walk near the Barangaroo Reserve. In the afternoon, I will continue debugging/testing. We also do daily checks of our systems to make sure everything is performing as expected and I set off for home around 5:20 p.m..

How would you describe the growth you’ve seen in your time at SIG?

My growth here is steady and fast. I started from working on a small project and I’m gradually getting more familiar with the whole development cycle. Now I am responsible for a larger-scale project and am more involved in the system design. I am improving on talking to multiple stakeholders to understand their requirements. I am also taking care of applications in production, so I am beginning to understand use cases that I have never thought about before which happen in production.

What do you like best about working at SIG?

Definitely the working culture! Everyone here is super friendly and super willing to help. There is not too much hierarchy here and people are easy to reach out to. I have found the people at SIG really friendly and willing to listen to my questions patiently. There is also more exposure to the whole internal system, compared to my internship experience with another firm, and I can get more mentorship from people around me. Also, we attach a lot of significance to work life balance here at SIG.

What projects and experiences have been most rewarding so far?

I was given a project which I was working on with support from my mentor. The application was firstly used by only a small range of users within our team. After several iterations and discussing with other teams, the application is now used across different teams. The most rewarding experience from it was the ability to carry out the project independently. Starting from proof of concepts and collecting feedback from the stakeholders. Then, fully implement the applications meeting the users’ requirements and collecting feedback again.

What three pieces of advice would you give to a graduate interviewing at SIG?

My most important piece of advice is to be yourself. Showing who you really are in the interview is crucial, as the interviewers are your future teammates Second, polish your technical skills. When interviewing for a graduate software engineer role, it is important to show solid understanding of technical knowledge and system design skills. Last, show enthusiasm and interest in the company as well as trading by asking some insightful questions.

Joseph

Quantitative Trader

What’s your background? What did you study?

I studied Maths and Finance at the University of Sydney.

What inspired you to pursue trading?

I have a university background and interest in both maths and finance, and trading presented a great opportunity to work in a fast-paced environment and a field that applied both.

What is your favourite thing about SIG?

I enjoy the entrepreneurial approach to trading at SIG. Traders are encouraged to come up with their own ideas and are helped to execute and evaluate them afterwards.

Additionally, SIG’s focus on the decision-making process and decision science when evaluating trading is very refreshing; it minimises the luck from trading when assessing decisions.

Finally, good communication is beneficial, there is a lot of benefit to being able to clearly communicate your decision process as well as understanding and react to feedback on the fly.

What does a typical day look like at SIG?

I start my day looking through overnight news alerts and emails from our Equity Research team, with a call one hour before trading with the team to discuss desk-specific events in more detail and do any project work I have.

From there I would look at market moves in the US and Europe and discuss any trading situations we have on the day with the rest of the desk.

Once the market opens, I am focussed on trading, and we use the HK market lunch break to flag any situations arising and gameplan for the post-lunch session.

After the close, we will have a desk huddle and recap our trading day to send to the rest of the firm.

Are there any specific skills or qualities that are essential to succeed at trading?

Trading allows for you to both showcase and capitalise on a wide range of skills. You will need a solid knowledge base in maths, including probability and distributions, plus an ability to quickly assess situations. Experience in competitive environments like sports or strategy games, can help an individual thrive in the fast-paced world of trading.

Furthermore, being generally inquisitive and enjoying assessing and solving complex problems is valuable, as well as an entrepreneurial mindset and an ability to lead projects.

How do you handle the stress of high stakes trading in your job?

While expectations are high at SIG and trading can be stressful by nature, the office culture is supportive rather than piling on pressure to perform.

I find keeping active helps me to relax as well, rock climbing and golf are my sports of choice.

What does typical career progression look like at SIG?

The trading intake starts with 6 months on-desk in Sydney, where you will learn about basic options and trading theory. From there you will join other Quantitative Traders at SIG’s US headquarters for 8-12 months, where you will further your trading education, culminating in SIG’s 10-week trading class. You would then be a junior trader and assigned to a desk.

Tom

Equity Research Analyst

What’s your background, what did you study?

I majored in Finance and Economics at university. I’ve worked at SIG for about a year now and have really enjoyed the experience so far!

What sparked your interest in working for a trading firm?

While I was in university, I competed in a lot of stock pitch and business case competitions. I really loved the thrill of competition, the sense of camaraderie, and the process of working in a team to solve complex problems. While I wasn’t sure of the exact career I wanted to pursue, I knew that I wanted to go into a role with those kinds of attributes. When I found out about the type of work in a trading firm, it felt like a great fit for my interests: the fast-paced nature of the work, the collaborative environment, the quick feedback loops, and the interesting problems all really appealed to me.

Tell us about your experience in the equity research program.

The Equity Research Analyst role is all about helping our traders gain an advantage in the markets. We do this in a few ways such as recommending trades on breaking news, determining how information is disseminated, and providing valuation and analysis on situations in the markets. We try to understand what factors are driving price movements and ensure that our opinions are reflected in products that we trade, particularly in options. The program starts off with an education program that covers options theory before working on the desks on research projects and later getting assigned a coverage area of stocks.

Tell us about a typical day for you.

In the morning when I get to the office, I’ll first catch up on the overnight news flow and send a recap of any impactful news to traders. Before the market opens, we have a discussion on the desk to discuss potential trading ideas that we can action.

When the market opens, I’ll actively monitor headlines for breaking news that can impact products we trade, as well as respond to any questions traders might come have. Sometimes, a piece of news will break, and we’ll work quickly to understand its implications and act on potential trading opportunities.

When the market is quieter, I’ll work on projects such as preparing for future events like an earnings announcement or potential catalysts that can affect a company. After the market closes, we’ll reflect on any situations that played out during the day and send out a recap to analysts and traders in our other offices.

Are there any skills or qualities that are essential to succeed in Research at SIG?

The key qualities essential to succeeding in research at SIG include a strong interest in the markets, the ability to think about problems critically, as well as being curious. It’s also important to be able to learn from mistakes. There will always be times where we miss out on an opportunity, or a trading opinion doesn’t play out as expected, so being able to reflect on how to improve for the future is important.

How would you describe the growth you’ve seen during your time at SIG?

Growth has been quite fast and I continue to learn every day. Research Analysts at SIG are given quite a lot of responsibility from early on, and there is a lot of autonomy and flexibility to work on different projects that interest me. When I joined, I wanted to learn about a lot of different products across many markets, and within my first few months, I was able to work on projects spanning the commodities space, Australia and Hong Kong option strategies, Japanese and Korean equities, and macroeconomic projects. I currently cover equities in the Asia-Pacific region, and really like the fact I can learn about a lot of different industries.

What do you like best about working at SIG?

The culture. People at SIG have a great sense of humour which makes the experience of working here a lot of fun. SIG also has a flat structure, there are no formal titles, and people are very friendly. You can reach out to anyone, and they will be willing to help you.

What projects and experiences have been most rewarding so far?

I think the most rewarding experiences are the ones that involve analysing a complex trading situation and recommending a trade that works out well. Every situation is different, and it’s always rewarding to see your decisions play out accurately in real time.

What three pieces of advice would you give to a graduate interviewing at SIG?

1: Keep up to date with what’s going on in the markets – whether it’s through investing in your own account, following news on your favourite companies, or reading news and seeing how it impacts the market.

2: Be inquisitive. Demonstrate your ability to think critically about different pieces of information, to dig deep into problems, and to come up with insights that others might not consider.

3:Being able to get across your ideas clearly and concisely is important on a trading floor – so that’s something that is also important to demonstrate in the interview process.

Robert

Quantitative Researcher

What’s your background? What did you study?

I took courses in Economics and Mechatronics Engineering at The University of Melbourne. I then studied a joint PhD program between The University of Melbourne and University of Birmingham, where I was affiliated with the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments. My research topic specialised in the realm of control engineering and mathematical optimisation.

What sparked your interest in working for a trading firm over Academia?

Reflecting on my academic background, a common theme would be that of systematic decision making – whether it be human or automated. There seemed like no place better than a trading firm where that happens a lot in actual day-to-day practice. Doing research at a trading firm, the feedback cycles also tend to be faster than in academia, so there’s never a dull moment and you can switch projects with a quick turnaround. I also regarded there to be better prospects for early-career progression and stability, working in industry generally.

Tell us about your experience in the Graduate Quant Research Program.

I joined SIG during COVID lockdowns, so my onboarding consisted of 3 weeks of Zoom classes on options trading basics. After that, I went straight into doing research and learning on-the-job. When borders opened, I was able to travel to SIG’s US headquarters in Philadelphia. There, I spent roughly 2 months going through a dedicated Quant Researcher training program, where we were taught different datasets and tools used in research at SIG, as well as additional machine learning and options pricing theory.

Tell us about a typical day for you.

I can normally be found working on my current research projects. Projects typically involve putting data through back testing or analysis pipelines, then scrutinising the outputs for the purpose of evaluating a strategy or validating a hypothesis. In the early stages of a project, I may be thinking more about the project’s scope, methodology, and ways to innovate on our trading strategies. Throughout the project, I could also be documenting the results and sharing them with the team or chatting with developers and traders about strategy implementation and deployment. Occasionally, an ad-hoc idea or question might arise, which allows me to run a quick study on that.

Are there any specific skills or qualities that are essential to succeed in Research at SIG?

We work with data on a daily basis, so overall savviness and intuition when reasoning about data is naturally needed. Projects may also require their own specific domain knowledge, from how particular financial instruments work, to how exchanges disseminate their high-frequency market data. It helps to have the resourcefulness to pick that up and apply any new assumptions to the analysis. The teams of trading, technology, research are all stakeholders of the trading system, yet each group differs in expertise. Collaborating effectively across these areas is essential, so it’s important to be able to communicate well between them.

How would you describe the growth you’ve seen in your time at SIG?

There’s certainly been growth in the impact of my work. The first few projects I worked on didn’t have much consequence to SIG’s trading, although I still learned a lot from doing them. My more recent projects, however, have gone on to affect SIG’s trading strategies in a very core way via a component of our option pricing model. The research I do now leverages earlier work, whether it be re-using some older code or an analysis technique. Over time, I’ve also gained familiarity with our quant tools and datasets. As a result, my efficiency in doing research has also grown.

What do you like best about working at SIG?

I’m enjoying the opportunity to tackle complex quantitative problems that aren’t always well-defined to begin with. For instance, we may be trying to determine whether some perceived effect in the markets is real. Given the noise inherent to financial markets, the approach is not always clear-cut, often requiring creative and critical thinking. It’s a blast working with terabyte-scale datasets and having the computing resources to process them effectively. The culture at SIG is also very collaborative. It feels like every team wants every other team to succeed, across different business units and even across offices.

What projects and experiences have been most rewarding so far?

A few projects have involved collaboration with the US team, where we’ve adapted some of their findings over to APAC markets. It’s then always an exciting yet nervous time watching a strategy that you’ve worked on enter production trading. The most rewarding feeling is monitoring those strategies and seeing them perform as expected from back tests and pilot tests.

What three pieces of advice would you give to a graduate interviewing at SIG?

1: Show your maths ability: Brush up on any maths skills which may have become rusty over time.

2: Think logically and strategically under uncertainty: Fun fact, SIG was founded by poker players who favoured thinking logically and strategically in the face of uncertainty. This is helpful information to guide your expectations of the interview process.

3: Be bold in your questions and thoughtful in your answers: The way you ask and answer questions shows your thinking process, so consider what you are showing about yourself through the way you choose to tackle a question.

Harry

Quantitative Researcher

What’s your background? What did you study?

I did a pure mathematics PhD before joining SIG. My thesis was on applications of probability theory to chaotic dynamical systems. While the subject matter of my PhD is not something that I regularly use at work, the research and abstract problem-solving skills that I developed during my PhD are indispensable tools that I still use every single day.

What sparked your interest in working for a trading firm over Academia?

Trading firms have no shortage of hard research problems to solve, which is not unlike academia. However, doing research at a trading firm is much more collaborative than in academia. While you may be the expert on a particular topic in the office, you will still be in constant discussion with other researchers, traders, and technologists about your work. In contrast, I found doing a PhD to be quite isolating – mathematics is so diverse that most mathematicians only have surface level familiarity with each other’s work. Also, in an academic career one has plenty of non-research responsibilities (e.g., teaching, administrative responsibilities). Quantitative researchers at trading firms are able to spend most of their time focussing on research. Lastly, research at a trading firm has a fast and tangible impact on the business compared to the very long peer-review process in academia.

Tell us about your experience in the Graduate Quant Research Program.

I was well supported during the onboarding experience. At the very beginning, I spent a few weeks doing a course on options theory, all while participating in social events with grads and attending weekly poker lessons. Over time, I was given increasingly difficult projects, and later I was invited to visit the headquarters in Philadelphia to attend an intensive course for quantitative researchers. There I met with many senior quants from our US business, attended lectures on SIG’s options trading stack, and worked through several mock studies from different business areas. Attending that course was the highlight of my first few years at SIG, and the connections I made there have served me well since returning to Sydney.

Tell us about a typical day for you.

There is never a typical day! At times I can be solely focused on a single longer-term project, while on other days I will be jumping between meetings and answering ad hoc research questions from traders or investigating the performance of improvements to our strategies. Having said that, I generally start the day by trying to talk to people in the Philadelphia office while our office hours overlap. I will then dive into whatever project is my current focus - this could involve building datasets in preparation for doing a study or creating a model, interrogating data to build signals to improve our production trading strategies, or checking that a new model has been implemented correctly before it is released into production. Often, I will have to talk to traders before the markets open to discuss ongoing projects. Meetings with other quants and teams can be scattered throughout the day.

Are there any specific skills or qualities that are essential to succeed in Research at SIG?

Aside from statistics and programming skills, I think good quants are thrifty, open-minded, and very curious, with a bit of a competitive streak. Our goal is to get to the truth of problems as cheaply as possible, and then to convert that truth into something tradeable – all the mentioned skills help in the pursuit of these goals.

How would you describe SIG’s growth, since you joined?

The firm has big ambitions for APAC markets, and consequently the Sydney office has been growing at a rapid pace. The atmosphere in the office is one of excitement and anticipation – nobody expects the work to be easy, but everybody is raring to do their bit.

What do you like best about working at SIG?

I enjoy the intensely collaborative and cross-disciplinary environment in which we do research at SIG – to get to the bottom of a particular question may involve talking to traders, operations, quants, or a variety of technologists to understand how each detail impacts the strategies that we are running. The work is also very challenging, which makes success all the more rewarding.

What projects and experiences have been most rewarding so far?

I’ve worked on a few projects that started as solo ventures building a model for a specific trading need that then evolved into collaborations with tech and trading in order to implement the model and incorporate it into our trading strategies. Seeing projects evolve from a simple concept to a fully-productionised component of a profitable strategy is incredibly rewarding, and it is a great feeling to have the support of your colleagues throughout the whole process.

What three pieces of advice would you give to a graduate interviewing at SIG?

1: Brush up on basic probability theory and statistics.

2: Make sure you understand some basic financial concepts. For example: how does an order book work, what is a call, what is market making and why would anybody be a market maker.

3: If you have any questions for us, make sure you ask them. We want people to comfortably be making an informed decision when joining the firm.

Charles

Quantitative Trader

Every day is a genuinely new and interesting challenge, much more so than I’d ever anticipated.

Your degrees are in Maths and Engineering. What led you to trading?

I was interested in trading but didn’t know much about it. I went into consulting after graduation, but I soon felt that it wasn’t right for me. Around this time, I spoke with a friend from University who was a trader at SIG, and I decided to apply. I had been interviewing at another financial services firm when I got my offer. When the other firm also spoke really highly of SIG, I knew I was making the right decision to join.

Tell us about your experience in the global Quantitative Trader program.

The program is a mix of training on the desk, in the classroom, and in mock trading sessions. Our classroom training covered basic theory as well as introductions to trading, product structures, and poker. When I found out I had been selected to go to the US for additional training, I was pretty excited. Everything is bigger at the HQ and the wealth of knowledge to draw upon is immense. Our poker classes were taught by WSOP winners and the owners of the firm were right there on the trading floor. I originally went to the US for 9-12 months of training, but that quickly turned into 18 months, which morphed into 3 years. After completing the initial training I stayed on in the US as a full-time trader, managing books in both single stocks and later indices. This took my experience to a whole new level. Throughout it all, I’ve worked with a bunch of really smart, impressive people all pursuing a common goal. It’s been great.

You’ve now returned to Sydney. What have you been able to bring back to the office from the experiences you had in the US?

So much centres around the relationships I built in the US with business and technical teams. We’re thinking differently about how we trade and make decisions, how we employ technology, and continuing to maintain relationships with the exchanges and brokers we interact with daily. I’ve been able to help design new technical solutions that we’re implementing and participate in market making forums, which have been fascinating.

Tell us about a typical day for you.

Before the market open, I read about market happenings overnight to prep for the day. I’ll set up for the day – deciding how I want to set vols and if we have any axes. We’ll also collaborate with research analysts and discuss the plan for the day across the desk. After the open, my focus is on trading, talking to brokers and collaborating with each other about particular trading decisions. After the close, we’ll debrief on how the day went and talk about what we could improve upon and/or change in how we approached our decisions.

How would you describe the growth you’ve seen in your time at SIG?

My career at SIG has taken different paths – from Sydney to the US and back. When I first started, I supported and shadowed traders. I continued to grow my knowledge on the desk and in the education program and attended the market making class where I learned SIG’s proprietary strategies. After class, I took on my own book to trade, the size and complexity of which continues to grow. I’ve also worked on non-trading related projects. The opportunities I’ve had to learn and grow are limitless. Prior to joining SIG, I didn’t even know this type of job existed and I feel pretty lucky to have stumbled upon it. Every day is a genuinely new and interesting challenge, much more so than I’d ever anticipated.

Shiyun

Graduate Software Developer

I’ve always been interested in learning new technologies, and SIG has been great in facilitating this for me.

What drew you to consider a career at a trading firm versus technology firm after University?

I participated in an electronic trading competition in my final year at university, which got me really interested in trading. I loved the combination of computing, finance and mathematics. A friend then told me about SIG so I went to the firm’s website and applied. Of the offers I had, SIG was the only trading firm I considered. I decided to join because of the exposure I’d get to different teams and the opportunity to learn more about finance, the markets and how exchanges operate.

Tell us about your experience in the Graduate Software Developer Program.

I was very excited about the opportunity to rotate into different teams. My first rotation was in risk, where I used C#, XML, and WPF and worked on projects that focused on front-end UI and back-end data processing. Next, I rotated into our connectivity team, which focuses on getting data from exchanges to SIG and sending orders back to exchanges as fast as possible. Here, I’ve worked with C++, Python, Linux libraries and multiple networking protocols (like TCP, UDP and multi-cast) on projects that ensure the speed and reliability of the systems that facilitate this data transmission.

We talk a lot at SIG about our lack of focus on titles. How would you describe the growth you’ve seen in your role?

I’ve always had a lot of autonomy in my work and was trusted to put code directly into production pretty quickly after moving through my rotations. Additionally, the projects I’ve worked on have been pretty impactful. One that stands out is an app I wrote to synchronise files between different servers quickly and reliably. SIG has servers all over the world and if we want files to be on two systems in real-time and in sync, my app has to be used to achieve that. That’s pretty cool.

Tell us about a typical day.

I’ll collaborate directly with our trading systems support teams, the traders and other engineering teams to deliver solutions to any production issues before the market opens. From there, I’ll work on projects I’m assigned. Recently, I’ve had a chance to get some international exposure as well, which has been great. I’m working on a project to migrate solutions to our office in Sydney from our HQ in the US to ensure we’re continuously able to optimize our trading and data transmissions systems and infrastructure. I’ve had to read a lot of documentation and have been able to partner closely with my counterparts in our US to learn from them and brainstorm solutions. It’s been great to get that international exposure and to work on something that will help to facilitate future application migrations and support

Michael

Quantitative Trader at SIG

Education and collaboration culture is great. I enjoy doing quantitative analysis and running trading tools for the team.

What sparked your interest in joining a company like SIG?

I was interested in mathematics and strategy, and felt that trading would be an area that would allow me to pursue these interests and learn to make optimal decisions in a competitive, fast-paced environment. SIG is a place where all of these things are part of my education and my day-to-day career.

What made you decide to join SIG?

The focus on education and the opportunity to train with other quantitative traders overseas in the US for an extended period of time. I like that the goal of the education program is to fully prepare me to be a trader upon my return to Sydney.

What was your interview like?

For SIG, the interview process is very technical with emphasis on probability, maths and game theory questions. Be prepared.

Can you walk us through what your typical work day looks like?

I arrive at work prior to market open to study overnight market moves. Myself and the other graduates then usually have a class where we practice mock trading/play poker. During the day I analyse markets with my team and assist in operational tasks, while also working on markets theory as part of the education program.

What projects and experiences have been most rewarding so far?

The most exciting and rewarding times are when markets are busy. These times can be stressful and require fast-paced decision making. I also enjoy helping other traders by providing both qualitative and quantitative information to assist their decision making.

What do you like best about working at SIG?

The education and collaboration culture is great. I enjoy doing quantitative analysis and running trading tools for the team. I also enjoy the process of learning more about the markets each day.

What three pieces of advice would you give to a graduate interviewing at SIG?

I think most importantly, pursue a role you enjoy because you should be able to look forward to coming to work every day!
When you find something you’re interested in, ask as many questions as possible (career fairs, employer events) to help you make your career decision.
During networking and interviewing processes, be yourself. Most company representatives can tell when you are putting on an act to appear like a strong candidate. Just be yourself.

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