I applied online. I interviewed at Jane Street in Oct 2018
Interview
Puzzzle submission.
1 round of phone interview: Easy questions but completely forgot abut linearity of expectations. Miscommunication about what "risk" means for 20 minutes and had the interviewer trying to explain to me about something that I already knew exactly what he's trying to say.
I'm probably not gonna move on.
1st round interview with some basic recursion mathematics problems involving a frog and some expected value. Interviewer was polite and clear with explanations of what was expected. Involved a frog jumping either 1 or two steps forward at a time. Number of paths to position n is a fibonacci sequence.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Probability and expected value problems. Pretty neat problems with neat solutions involving fibonacci recursion.
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?
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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