Optiver reviews

Political. There's a lot of people in upper management who obviously didn't get there through merit (just look at the number of business majors!) You'll have more success as a sycophant than as a competent trader. Coworkers are unintelligent. Seriously, ask someone here a math question. There's a 10% chance they'll be able to answer and most people here just cheated through the interviews. The company's success is more due to their willingness to take risk and the relatively few players in the space than anything else. Cutthroat environment. Traders here are unhelpful and often play weird games to make themselves look better. Disorganized. Because traders don't do anything that's not in their personal best interest, it's hard for anything collaborative to succeed from the trading side. Opaque. Optiver's transparent about how much everyone makes, but management decisions are shrouded in mystery. No one will ever give you feedback on how you're doing until your end of year review and you may be assigned to a different desk with no warning or personal input, including desks with overnight hours.

There was a lot of turnover. Most of the people that were on the team in 2017 are no longer on the team. The good ones left for greener pastures (including myself) or for different industries, and only the leaders and management are left. The management does a terrible job recognizing people's achievements and also like to withhold promotions. As a result, the distribution of seniority is very polar (a bunch of partners and a bunch of low-level employees). They also keep you in the dark about high level projects and goals and just expect you to do work assigned to you without any context or innovation. There is a lot of micromanagement. When conditions change and they need a new round of innovation/work, I can guarantee the personnel, talent, and motivation will not be there the second time around.