Performance Researcher Summer Intern
Optiver is a global technology- and research-driven proprietary trading firm and market maker providing liquidity across financial markets, including through an active 24/7 Digital Assets desk.
Maintainer signals as of 9/2/2026
About Optiver
Founded in Amsterdam in 1986, Optiver uses its own capital, quantitative research and proprietary technology to continuously quote, price and trade financial instruments across global markets. Its activities include listed derivatives, cash equities, ETFs, bonds, foreign currencies and digital assets; its Digital Assets desk operates crypto options market-making strategies across major venues with follow-the-sun coverage.
Skills
Candidate Availability
Required and preferred rules are kept separate and reflect the wording in the original posting.
About the Role
You will investigate execution-performance problems involving market data, low-latency trading systems, networks, broker infrastructure, and exchanges. You will reconstruct event flows from market, order, system, and network data, develop hypotheses, run statistical experiments and black-box analyses, and identify performance patterns. You will also build prototypes, metrics, analyses, and visualizations to test ideas, quantify results, and help implement trading-execution improvements.
Requirements
- Be a university student graduating in 2028 or after September 2027
- Pursue or have recently completed a technical degree in computer science, computer engineering, electronic engineering, communication engineering, or a related field
- Demonstrate strong foundations in computer systems and quantitative reasoning
- Possess knowledge of operating systems, networking, computer architecture, or software and hardware systems
- Demonstrate proficiency in Python and data analysis
- Provide evidence of technical depth through research, systems or networking projects, internships, or substantial personal projects
- Experience with Linux, C++, or large-scale data tools is a plus
- Demonstrate strong analytical, problem-solving, and learning abilities
Responsibilities
- Investigate execution-performance problems across market data, low-latency trading systems, networks, broker infrastructure, and exchanges
- Use data, experiments, and systems thinking to explain observed behavior and identify trading-execution improvements
- Analyze market, order, system, and network data to reconstruct event flows and uncover performance patterns
- Develop hypotheses and run statistical experiments or black-box analyses to understand complex system behavior
- Build analyses, prototypes, metrics, and visualizations to test ideas and quantify results
- Collaborate with traders, researchers, and engineers to evaluate and implement improvements
Benefits
- Employer-covered flights and accommodation for the internship
- Gym membership
- Weekly in-house chair massages
- Daily breakfast and lunch
- In-house barista
- Regular social events