Part 6 · Interview prep
Firms, courses and books
The Quant Bible’s reading list. Quant interviews cover probability, combinatorics, statistics, coding, data science and market sense, so most people spend a few semesters building the foundation before recruiting. Use this course alongside the classes below, then switch to interview practice with the books and the question bank.
Where to apply
- Jane StreetQuant trading, quantitative research, software engineering
- Citadel and Citadel SecuritiesSystematic and semi-systematic trading, fundamental analysis, global fixed income, quantitative research, SWE
- The D. E. Shaw GroupProprietary trading, quantitative analysis, SWE and quant development
- Two SigmaQuantitative research, SWE
- Hudson River TradingAlgorithm development, SWE
- J.P. MorganQuantitative research
- Also hiring quantsJump Trading, SIG, Optiver, Akuna Capital, Bridgewater, QuantCo, DRW, IMC Trading, Five Rings, AQR, Virtu Financial, Tower Research, Seven Eight Capital, TransMarket Group, Wolverine Trading, Old Mission Capital, Point72 (Cubist), Belvedere Trading, Group One, Flow Traders
Courses that build the foundation
- MIT 18.600Probability and random variables
- MIT 18.06Linear algebra
- MIT 14.32Econometrics
- MIT 6.042Discrete mathematics
- MIT 6.006 / 6.046Algorithms
- MIT 6.034 / 6.036Machine learning
- MIT 18.650Statistics
- Going further18.615: Stochastic processes, the main field of mathematical finance · 6.867: Graduate machine learning · 6.437 / 6.438: Inference: the theory behind statistics and ML · 18.211: Advanced combinatorics
Most universities have direct equivalents, and MIT OpenCourseWare publishes many of these for free.
Books
- Thinking, Fast and Slow · Daniel KahnemanThe psychology of decisions; relevant to how traders think
- Heard on the Street · Timothy CrackA standard for finance interview practice; chapter 2 has 70 brainteasers
- The Elements of Statistical Learning · Hastie, Tibshirani, FriedmanThe core data-science book for quant research (part 3 here follows it)
- Quant Job Interview Questions and Answers · Mark JoshiBroad interview preparation
- A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews · Xinfeng ZhouThe “green book”; chapters 2 and 4 are essential
- Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability · Frederick MostellerClassic probability puzzles with solutions
- Cracking the Coding Interview · Gayle Laakmann McDowellData structures and algorithms, increasingly tested
Going deeper
- Intro to and Intermediate Counting & Probability · Art of Problem SolvingCompetition-style combinatorics and probability
- Option Volatility and Pricing · Sheldon NatenbergThe options book; some firms teach directly from it
- Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives · John HullThe standard derivatives textbook
Websites
- GlassdoorInterview reports for individual firms and internships
- The Puzzle ToadCarnegie Mellon’s puzzle collection
- Wall Street OasisFinance-career discussion, some quant interview help
- LeetCodeCoding practice; some trader and researcher roles include coding rounds
- KaggleData-science projects and practice with NumPy, pandas and SciPy