I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Jane Street (New York, NY)
Interview
There were three rounds of phone interviews, each one longer than the last; mine went from 20 minutes to 45 minutes to 60 minutes. After this, I was invited to their office for a final round of interviews. There were three interviews of one hour each, along with lunch with one of their traders and a tour of the office.
For the on-site interviews, they give you a stack of poker chips, then present you with games of chance (of various complexity) and ask you to place bets on the outcomes. Then they actually roll the dice, deal cards, etc. and pay you if you win.
I should note that they were upfront about their reticence to hire people that hadn't already had internships with them. True to form, they didn't hire me.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Specific interview questions are confidential; I will only note that they were probability problems and some basic game theory. No fancy math, though some problems did require a trick as the straightforward approach would take way too long.
The interviewer was very informative. The questions appeared basic initially, but they required deeper reasoning, strong fundamental knowledge, and careful problem-solving instead of simple, straightforward answers throughout the interview process.
The process was structured and intellectually challenging. It typically involves an initial recruiter screen, followed by probability, mental math, expected value, and game-style problem-solving interviews. Interviewers focus more on reasoning, communication, and adapting to feedback than memorized answers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
You have two opaque boxes in front of you. At each turn, you may choose one of two actions:
Place: put one coin into one of the two boxes, chosen uniformly at random.
Take: choose one of the two boxes uniformly at random, take all the coins inside, and empty that box.
You play for exactly 100 turns. Your goal is to maximize the expected number of coins you collect.
What is your optimal strategy?
Several phone calls to go to the final round. The phone calls consists of mathematical, probabilistic brain teasers which was not that hard for a mathematics major. Final round was to harsh for me, strong mentality is required
Jane Street interviews FAQs
Quantitative Trader applicants have rated the interview process at Jane Street with 3.6 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 75% positive. To compare, the company-average is 63.8% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Quantitative Trader roles take an average of 19 days to get hired, when considering 143 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Jane Street overall takes an average of 17 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Jane Street as a Quantitative Trader according to 143 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 38%
Skills test: 19%
One on one interview: 17%
Presentation: 6%
Personality test: 5%
IQ intelligence test: 5%
Group panel interview: 4%
Other: 3%
Drug test: 2%
Background check: 1%
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