I have a mild amount of insight into getting algo trading software engineering jobs: I had an internship at one of these companies this last summer and got a full time offer from from several. (However, I’m planning on working on alignment).
Maybe this is all totally obvious, but regardless, my short summary for one path into this industry is something like:
Go to university in the US, ideally somewhere with prestige. Top public universities (e.g. university of Michigan) can be decent, but MIT or similar is better.
Try to build up an internship ladder to one of these places. Maybe go small company → small hedge fund or other finance → algo trading.
Once you get an internship, you should be basically good to go (assuming the company thought you did a good job). I think most people get return offers and once you have an internship at one of these places, it’s easy to get past the resume screen at other algo trading companies.
This means that internships after freshman/sophomore year can be really important.
Of course, ideally, you would just intern at an algo trading place from the start, but these internships can be hard to get without the right prior internships.
I have a mild amount of insight into getting algo trading software engineering jobs: I had an internship at one of these companies this last summer and got a full time offer from from several. (However, I’m planning on working on alignment).
Maybe this is all totally obvious, but regardless, my short summary for one path into this industry is something like:
Go to university in the US, ideally somewhere with prestige. Top public universities (e.g. university of Michigan) can be decent, but MIT or similar is better.
Try to build up an internship ladder to one of these places. Maybe go small company → small hedge fund or other finance → algo trading.
Once you get an internship, you should be basically good to go (assuming the company thought you did a good job). I think most people get return offers and once you have an internship at one of these places, it’s easy to get past the resume screen at other algo trading companies.
This means that internships after freshman/sophomore year can be really important. Of course, ideally, you would just intern at an algo trading place from the start, but these internships can be hard to get without the right prior internships.
Obvious advice is under rated, thank you for sharing this