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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I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Jane Street (London, England) in Dec 2018
Interview
1 challenge involving blotto game theory, 2 phone interviews, both scheduled for an hour but actually only taking between 30-45 minutes. There would have been a final face to face interview day if I had made it past the second phone interview. The whole thing took 3 months, it really dragged out because they lost my initial submission to the blotto challenge.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
If I flip 100 coins and then multiply the number of heads by the number of tails, what is the expected value of that number? Can you give a confidence interval on this number?
I play a game where I start with a score of 100. I then flip 10 coins in a row. Every time I get a head I add 1 to my score. When I get a tails I take the reciprocal of my score. If you are running this game, and people are given their score in pounds at the end of the game, how much would you charge people to play?
Google the game 'Shut the box'. He asked me to figure out the average score someone has at the end of the game if they play the 'optimal' strategy. After getting this number, he wanted to know how this would change if instead of playing the optimal strat, they made random moves. Super open ended problem.
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